Bigger Than Your Head

Weekend Wine Sips: Let the Grilling Season Begin!

Fredric Koeppel — Sat, 25 May 2013 18:44:56 +0000

In the minds of many thoughtful and fun-loving Americans, Memorial Day represents the unofficial (or perhaps really official) opening of the outdoor cooking or grilling season. In honor of the day and of the entire concept of charring meat and vegetables over hot coals, I offer nine red wines of varying degrees of robustness, heartiness, rusticity and whack-’em-upside-the-head flavorishiness. We touch many bases here in terms of grape varieties, countries and regions, but you will see no merlot, pinot noir or cabernet sauvignon, just because that’s the way I feel today. Let’s shine a little light on bonarda, barbera and petite sirah! (I slightly modify what I said about cabernet; there’s a touch in a blend of one of these wines. As usual with the Weekend Wine Sips, the focus, the intensity, the concentration is on the wines themselves, characterized in brief but pithy and, I hope, provocative reviews. So light that fire, throw on a haunch of goat and enjoy the beginning of summer. These wines were samples for review or were tasted at trade events.

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Concannon Conservancy Petite Sirah 2009, Livermore Valley. 14.2% alc. Dark ruby-purple with an opaque center; dark in every sense but quite drinkable; black olive, leather, fruitcake; black currants, black raspberries and plums; graphite and grainy tannins permeate luscious black fruit flavors; lively and dynamic. A heavy-lifter but light on its feet. Needs a steak or a burger, preferably with bleu cheese and grilled onions. Very Good+. About $15.
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Bocelli Sangiovese 2011, Rosso Toscana, Italy. 13% alc. 100% sangiovese. Produced by the family of the well-known performer Andrea Bocelli; though he is a tenor, this wine devolves to bass-notes; starts with a medium ruby color; fresh, bright, spicy and appealing; then robust, dense and chewy, lots of weight for the plum, black and red currant fruit; fairly tannic and earthy; demands hearty fare, like sausages grilled to a turn or barbecue ribs. Very Good+. About $15.
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Greg Norman Shiraz 2010, Limestone Coast, Australia. 14.5% alc. Dark ruby color with a magenta rim; deep, warm, spicy; large-framed, intense and concentrated, yet deftly balanced and well-knit; very ripe and spicy black fruit scents and flavors imbued with hints of leather, tobacco, mint, bitter chocolate and graphite; pretty damned sleek, highly appealing and drinkable but with a foundation of dusty tannins. Excellent. About $15, representing Good Value.
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Luca Bosio Barbera d’Asti 2011, Piedmont, Italy. 13% alc. 100% barbera grapes. Lovely medium ruby color; very charming, made all in stainless steel for freshness and brightness; red and black currants with a touch of plums; moderately spicy and herbal in the cloves and dried thyme ranges; manageable tannins lend support, keen acidity keeps it honest. Grilled chicken with a coffee-cumin rub perhaps? Very Good+. About $16.
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Borsao Berola 2009, Campo de Borja, Spain. 14.5% alc. 70% garnacha, 20% syrah, 10% cabernet sauvignon. Tightly focused and intense, dusty tannins and grippy iron-iodine mineral elements; still, there are ripe, dark, spicy black and blue fruit flavors, hints in the bouquet of dried currants and baking spices; foresty, with touches of moss underbrush; savory, rolls on the palate. Begs for a medium-rare ribeye steak, hot and crusty from the grill. Very Good+. About $16 in my neck of the woods; priced from $12 to $17 around the country..
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Artezin Zinfandel 2011, Mendocino County. 14.5% alc. Dark ruby color; blackberries, black currants and plums, backnotes of rhubarb and boysenberry, but nothing sweet or over-ripe; richness tempered by bright acidity, sleek tannins and graphite-like minerality; bracing freshness, full-bodied, spicy with touches of lavender and violets. An attractive zinfandel to drink with steaks and burgers and grilled leg of lamb. Very Good+. About $18.
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Paolo Manzone “Ardi” Rosso 2012, Langhe, Piedmont. 13% alc. 60% dolcetto, 40% barbera. Brilliant medium ruby color, darker in the center; complex bouquet of red and black cherries and currants with touches of plum, cloves and orange zest and undertones of graphite and leather; medium body but rollicking tannins and acidity for liveliness; tasty cherry and raspberry flavors with hints of tar and lavender, sour cherry and violets. Super attractive. Very Good+. About $23.
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Mairena Bonarda 2010, Mendoza, Argentina. 13.7% alc. Deep opaque purple-black; dense, chewy, robust and rustic, a little chunky and cheeky and somehow irresistible for its punk-like bravado; very dark black and blue fruit flavors, smoldering with leather and licorice, lavender and smoke and hint of cloves and black olives. I’m thinking grilled pork chops with a spicy Southwestern rub. Very Good+, perhaps edging closer to Excellent. About $25.
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Bonny Doon Le Pousseur Syrah 2010, Central Coast. 12.8% alc. Always reliable and filled with character. Very dark ruby-purple color; balances a polished, honed exterior with intensity and concentration and deep focus on black currant, blackberry and plum scents and flavors and a scintillating granitic mineral element; robust, furry tannins and vibrant acidity bolster details of black olives and oolong tea, leather and lavender and a touch of the grape’s trademark wet dog. Excellent. About $26.
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World-Class Shiraz from Kay Brothers in McLaren Vale

Fredric Koeppel — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:38:17 +0000

In the Wine Atlas of Australia & New Zealand (HarperCollins, 1998), James Halliday refers to Kay Brothers in McLaren Vale as a “traditional winery with a rich history and some priceless old vines.” As far as history is concerned, the winery was established in 1890 by brothers Herbert and Frederick Kay (pictured on many of the labels) and is the oldest estate in McLaren Vale still owned by the founding family. Winemaker now is Herbert’s grandson Colin Kay, who uses traditional methods and in fact employs the winery’s original basket press and open-top fermenters. “Priceless old vines” refers to the estate vineyard’s Block 6, planted in 1892 and still producing shiraz grapes that are bottled separately as the property’s flagship wine. As for me, these are the sorts of wines and the kind of family estate that are a joy to write about, because they embody a heritage and an adherence to old-fashioned methods, and they evince no desire to be all things to all people. These Kay Brothers wines from 2010 were tasted in Chicago on May 15, 2013.
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The entry-level wine at this estate is the Kay Brothers Hillside Shiraz 2010, McLaren Vale. The color is very dark ruby, almost black in the center and with an intense violet rim. Despite the portent of that depth of hue, this is not a heavily extracted wine and is impressive for an impeccable sense of balance, especially in the sway dusty tannins against vibrant acidity and a dynamic graphite element. Fruit shines though, with a bright array of ripe and slightly macerated black and red currants, blackberries and blueberries fostered by earthy touches of leather and briers and hints of cloves and sandalwood, lavender, bitter chocolate and dried thyme, all of these aspects beautifully proportioned and poised. 14.5 percent alcohol. Drink now through 2017 to 2020. Excellent. About $35.
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Next is the Kay Brothers Basket Pressed Shiraz 2010, McLaren Vale, a wine derived from the estate’s Amery Vineyard; it
spent 18 months in American, French and Bulgarian oak barrels. The color is dark ruby with a vivid magenta cast; aromas of ripe black currants, blackberries and mulberries are deeply infused with cloves and allspice and some wild spicy and floral note, as well as graphite-tinged touches of briers and brambles, making for a lively and engaging bouquet. On the palate, this wine is pure and intense, downright lovely in its lucid spicy black fruit qualities but also a little chiseled and flinty, more faceted than rounded, so while every element is balanced and harmonious, the emphasis lies in a somewhat sculpted structural character. I don’t mean that this nature is a flaw, in fact far from it; I love the crystalline, scintillating approach that bolsters the wine’s ripe fruit with its slightly Olympian — yet thoroughly drinkable — personality. 14.5 percent alcohol. Now through 2018 to ’22. Excellent. About $45.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Third in this trio is the Kay Brothers Amery Block 6 Shiraz 2010, McLaren Vale. Of the original 12 acres of Block 6, planted in 1892, only four acres remain. The wine aged 20 months in American oak barrels. The color is dark ruby that sports magnificent depth and clarity, while the complete package is wrapped in the paradoxical yet totally complementary qualities of rigor and allure; my first note: “just beautiful.” While the wine’s sense of dimension — its breadth and depth of tannin and mineral elements. its profound acidity and longevity on the palate — feels immense, it does not diminish the finely-etched details of fruit and flowers and spice that lend the aspect that many great and profound wines often display, a quality of refinement and grace. Here’s a wine that offers a lesson that I mentioned in a previous post this week, that thoughtful winemaking disappears into the wine; there’s no ego here, rather a tribute to a revered pieces of land and the grapes it faithfully produces. 14.5 percent alcohol. Drink now through 2020 to 2024. Exceptional. About $66.
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Wine of the Week

Fredric Koeppel — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:17:11 +0000

We often drink the Cakebread Sauvignon Blanc in restaurants, occasionally buying a bottle but more often by the glass, so obviously we like it. Cakebread Cellars was the first winery I visited on my first trip to Napa Valley, in 1987, covering the Napa Valley Wine Auction. The winery celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, having been founded in 1973 by Jack Cakebread, photographer and owner of Cakebread’s Garage, an auto repair shop in San Francisco started by Leo Cakebread in 1927. I say that Jack Cakebread founded the winery, but his wife Dolores and sons Steve, Bruce and Dennis cannot be left out of even a brief account of the Cakebread history. The company is still family-owned and has grown from its original 22 acres to hundreds of acres with vineyards throughout Napa Valley and a pinot noir outpost in Anderson Valley, Mendocino County. Jack Cakebread is CEO, Bruce is president and COO, and Dennis is senior vice president for sales and marketing. Winemaker since 2002 has been Julianne Laks.

The Cakebread Cellars Sauvignon Blanc 2011, Napa Valley, is a carefully calibrated wine that offers so much pleasure that it does not feel micro-managed. The grapes derive from the estate’s vineyards in Rutherford, Calistoga, Carneros and southeastern Napa Valley. The blend is 92 percent sauvignon blanc (4 percent of that the aromatic sauvignon musque clone) and 8 percent semillon. The wine fermented primarily in stainless steel (82 percent) with the rest in one-to-four-year-old French oak barrels. Ninety percent of the wine aged five months in neutral French oak, that is, in barrels previously used to the extent that any wood influence is minimal. The point is that the wine sees no new oak (with its taint of vanilla and toast) and what oak it comes in contact with provides gentle shaping and suppleness and spice without dominating the package. The other point is that thoughtful winemaking disappears into the wine.

So, a pale gold color that leads into a wine that’s all nuance and freshness and frank appeal. Notes of lemongrass and acacia, roasted lemon and gooseberry are woven with hints of melon, lime peel, grapefruit and tarragon, all conveyed with delicacy and grace. The character is totally lovely tone and presence, with a sense of precision in the (slightly smoky) limestone mineral element and a chiseled quality to the bright, vivid acidity; citrus flavors tend toward grapefruit, lemon and orange zest, with infusions of cloves, bay leaf and green apple bolstered by a texture of moderate lushness perfectly balanced by a trace of spare elegance. 14.1 percent alcohol. Drink now through 2014. We had this over several nights, once with tuna and again with salmon. Excellent. About $24.

A sample for review.

A Finalist Again!

Fredric Koeppel — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:25:55 +0000

Dear Readers: Again this blog has been named a finalist in the Best Wine Review Blog category in the Wine Blog Awards. If you appreciate what I do here and profit from the approach I take in terms of writing about and describing wines and providing background information of a historical, geographical, technical and philosophical nature, then I in turn would appreciate your vote. Here’s a link to the awards page: http://wineblogawards.org/from-the-organizers/the-finalists-in-the-2013-wine-blog-awards-are-announced/

Thanks for your confidence and for your readership.

Sweet, Lovely, Rare

Fredric Koeppel — Sat, 18 May 2013 18:46:52 +0000

The grapes from which distilled products and fortified wines are made often get no love in terms of being used for table wines, the exceptions being the red grapes grown in the Douro Valley that traditionally go into Port. Few people would rally round ugni blanc as a producer of great wines, yet it’s the principle grape in Cognac. Similarly, you will find few advocates of California’s old mission grape as the source of fine wine — no one attests to the drinkability of sacramental wine — but the humble grape can find a higher calling in fortified dessert wines, one such splendid example being the Angelica produced by Swanson Vineyards from a vineyard in Amador County planted in 1856. Yes, these gnarled ancient vines still deliver a few intense grapes every year, enough to make about two barrels of this Angelica that aged six years in neutral oak barrels and was bottled in July 2010. Immediately after fermentation, the wine was fortified with brandy to 19 percent alcohol. Angelica is what’s called “non-vintage,” meaning, really, that it derives from several vintages.

The Angelica nv, Amador County, offers a ruddy, dark amber color of beautiful transparency and luminosity. Aromas of cloves, toffee, orange zest and maple syrup are woven with notes of toasted coconut and roasted hazelnuts, cinnamon and fruitcake and an intriguing sort of wheatmeal-graham flour earthiness. Sweet? Oh, hell, yeah, like bananas Foster is sweet, like chocolate bread pudding is sweet — and there are tantalizing touches of each here — but tingling, lip-smacking acidity and a deepening close to startling spicy nature temper the sweetness from mid-palate back through the finish that surprisingly brings in a shade of graphite-like minerality. The texture goes beyond supple to ethereal. Drink from now until Doomsday; I mean this stuff is probably immortal. Production was 350 six-bottle cases. Excellent. About $140.

A sample for review.

Wine of the Week: Two Takes on Grenache

Fredric Koeppel — Tue, 14 May 2013 15:56:33 +0000

Grenache is a versatile grape, but if it’s mishandled it can come dangerously close to being that generic nadir all things to all people, not a pretty pickle for a grape to find itself in. For today’s Wine of the Week, I offer two versions of the grape, one from Lodi, the other from Dry Creek Valley — obviously both from California — that fulfill quite different functions without doing the slightest damage to the grape’s reputation and in fact enhancing it. Each of these wines is made completely from grenache grapes. Both were samples for review.

First is the Frisk Prickly Grenache 2011, from Lodi’s Woodbridge District — in the Central Valley east of San Francisco Bay — a charming, refreshing wine that features low alcohol, a touch of sweetness and a hint of gently sparkling petillence (not petulance, never that). The Frisk wines, imported by Old Bridge in Napa, were previously made in an area of Australia’s Victoria region called Alpine Valley. What to call this color? Topaz? Copper? Coral? Embarrassed peach? In any case, the wine, made all in stainless steel, offers notes of melon, sour cherry and pomegranate with a tease of cloves and an initial tantalizing strain of candied orange rind. Clean, vivid acidity keeps it dry from mid-palate back through the spicy, slightly limestone-and lime-peel-flecked finish. 11.9 percent alcohol. Completely delightful and wholly appropriate for Summertime drinking with light appetizers and salad-based meals. We had a glass with scrambled egg and pork tenderloin tacos with little yellow tomatoes, sorrel and oregano. Drink through the end of 2013. Very Good+. About $14.

A more traditional approach to the grape is represented by the Quivira Wine Creek Ranch Grenache 2011, Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma County, traditional in that it’s aged in oak barrels, but rather nontraditional in that this wine is 100 percent grenache grapes, not bolstered with mourvedre or syrah, as typically occurs in the South of France and in Australia. The color is the entrancing medium cherry-mulberry hue seen in glasses of wine in Dutch still-life paintings. In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising if the wine in all those still-life paintings was French, since the Dutch dominated trade in Europe in the 17th Century and regularly shipped wine from France to the Baltic nations. Anyway, this wine aged an indeterminate length of time — the winery’s website is coy about this matter — in a combination of small French and Eastern European oak barrels and in larger 600-gallon casks. Enticing aromas of black and red currants and raspberries are wreathed with hints of briers and brambles and back-notes of cloves and rhubarb and lightly smoked meat; give it a few minutes to emit traces of lilacs and violets. The Quivira Wine Creek Ranch Grenache 2011 offers lovely heft and transparency, delicacy and elegance; there’s nothing heavy or obvious here, all is smooth and supple, spare and lithe. Flavors of spiced and roasted plums open to touches of black cherries and raspberries, as well as deeper elements of forest and graphite. Tannins gently grip the palate and roll on. Don’t pair this wine with brutal red meat dishes, your haunch of venison, your saddle of boar; save this for grilled leg of lamb, though we will be forgiven for drinking it with zucchini lasagna. 14.1 percent alcohol. Now through 2014 or ’15. Production was 501 cases. Excellent. About $30.

Weekend Wine Sips: Eight Whites for Spring and Summer, each from a different region

Fredric Koeppel — Sun, 12 May 2013 20:56:17 +0000

This post of Weekend Wine Sips isn’t exactly a Mother’s Day edition, but I did receive a press release about wines for Mom from a Major Wine Publication that listed only sauvignon blancs (as if mothers drink only that grape variety), so in this roster of white wines for spring and summer I omit sauvignon blanc entirely. Each of these wines is 100 percent varietal; each is from a different region or country; each is made in stainless steel or receives minimal oak treatment including no new oak. (Actually I think that criterion applies to only one of these.) As usual, I eschew detailed technical, geographical and historical information in these brief Weekend Wine Sips reviews the better to whet your curiosity and thirst with incisiveness and immediacy. Prices here range from about $11 to $25; each wine marks a good value wherever it falls within that range. The motivation is delight, freshness, elegance, balance and appeal. These wines were samples for review. Enjoy!
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Plantagenet Omrah Unoaked Chardonnay 2011, Great Southern, Western Australia. 13.5% alc. Pale gold color; a really pretty chardonnay — lemon, lime, lime peel and grapefruit; smoke and a hint of mango, touch of jasmine — but crisp acidity, oyster-shell and limestone all the way through the finish; dry with a bit of austerity. Very Good+. About $15.
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Protea Chenin Blanc 2012, Wine of Coastal Region, South Africa. 13% alc. Pale straw color; beguiling aromas of hay, thyme and tarragon, pears and yellow plums; lovely satiny texture but bristly and prickly, fleet acidity and heaps of limestone and chalk, dry, crisp, refreshing and appealing. Very Good+. About $18.
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Principessa Gavia Gavi 2012, Piedmont, Italy. 12% alc. Pale straw color with a hint of green; sweetly expressive bouquet: pears and greengage, cloves and thyme, hints of leafy fig and sea-salt, jasmine and lemon balm; squinching acidity, lustrous elements of chalk and limestone and flint; deftly balanced between bone-dry and almost winsomely attractive floral and citrus qualities. Very Good+. About $14.
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Grooner Grüner Veltliner 2012, Niederösterreich, Austria. (Produced by Weingut Meinhard Forstreitter) 12% alc. Very pale straw-gold; melon and pears with hints of lemon, lime peel and grapefruit, touch of green pea and thyme; pert, tart, taut and sassy; hint of grapefruit bitterness on the limestone-laced finish. Delightful. Very Good. About $11.
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St. Supéry Estate Moscato 2012, Napa Valley, California. 10.5% alc. Very very pale gold color; apple and apple blossom, pear and peach, hint of lime peel and orange zest; soft, almost cloud-like texture but crisp acidity cuts a swath to the limestone-inflected finish; ripe and sweet on entry, but the acid and mineral elements tone down the sweetness to a sort of blanched dryness, so the finish comes out clean and elegant, delicate and balanced; stands out in the sea of vapid moscato presently engulfing the country; begs for dessert of fresh berries. Excellent. About $25.
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Brooks Runaway White Pinot Blanc 2011, Willamette Valley, Oregon. 11.3% alc. Pale pale straw-gold color; pure lemon with a lime peel twist, hints of jasmine and slightly over-ripe peaches and an elusive scent of lavender; a little earthy and smoky; scintillating acidity and limestone-flint minerality, lots of energy and vitality and a sense of flaking schist and flint; very dry, all stones and bones from mid-palate back; marked spareness and austerity in the vigorous finish. An argument for planting more pinot gris in the appropriate areas and treating it right. 244 cases. Excellent. About $15.
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Villa Wolf Pinot Gris 2011, Pfalz, Germany. 12.5% alc. (Produced by Dr. Loosen) Medium gold-straw color; roasted lemon and lemon balm, quince and ginger, hints of cloves and smoke, slightly earthy; highly animated acidity and spicy qualities fuel this wines liveliness, while a silken texture and underlying limestone elements give it pleasing heft. Delicious. Very Good+. About $14.
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Greywacke Riesling 2011, Marlborough, New Zealand. 12% alc. Brilliant pale gold color; lychee and a touch of petrol, roasted lemon, spiced pear and honeysuckle, hint of lilac face powder; very dry, lean and clean, irresistible texture combining brisk acidity with lovely soft ripeness that does not preclude the glacial authority of crystalline limestone minerality. Excellent. About $25.
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Not Fraternity or Liberty, But Equality Is Equally Important

Fredric Koeppel — Sat, 11 May 2013 20:09:08 +0000

We don’t frequently purchase products of the vine with a social or cultural program in mind, and when the rare opportunity comes along, it’s usually in the field of the environment. Steelhead Vineyards, for example, donates 1 percent of sales to environmental projects through 1% for the Planet, the non-profit organization based in Waitsfield, Vermont, that coordinates contributions to environmental groups from more than 1,000 business and corporate members. Buy a bottle of Steelhead’s sauvignon blanc or pinot noir wines, and you know that in some small measure you’ll helping the global ecology.

A recently released sparkling wine, Égalité Crémant de Bourgogne Brut , takes such a concept into actual social and cultural realms by focusing on LGBTQ issues, including the struggle for same-sex marriage laws. The initials (for the uninitiated) stand for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and before the retrograde among My Readers make the obvious joke about redundancy, “Queer” in this compound designates individuals who take a radical approach to any sexual or gender identification or, on a simpler and opposite level, those who “question” their sexual or gender identity. The creator of Égalité Crémant de Bourgogne Brut — Biagio Cru — in honor of the sparkler’s launch, donated close to $7,000 to various LGBTQ organizations; in addition, an unspecified portion of the sales of Égalité will be donated to such groups. On the product’s Facebook page, you may vote for the groups to which the organization donates

Allow me here to quote from the press release I received: The Égalité concept is a product of exhaustive research by Biagio Cru, as well as input from the gay community. In conjunction with Biagio Cru, its name and label were developed through a focus group that brought together gay and straight participants with diverse backgrounds, including leaders in the fight for same-sex marriage. Perhaps the committee-approach accounts for the feel-good generic quality of the label, looking like a thousand Valentine cards, but what counts is the product in the bottle, n’est-ce pas?

Égalité Crémant de Bourgogne Brut offers a pale gold color with a darker gold center; tiny golden bubbles foam upward in constant flurry. A blend of 45 percent pinot noir, 30 percent chardonnay, 20 percent gamay and 5 percent aligoté, this Crémant de Bourgogne is more substantial than most models; it’s toasty and nutty, with notes of roasted lemon and lemon drop, quince and crystallized ginger and hints of cloves and caramel. As the minutes pass, touches of glazed pears, tobacco, cinnamon toast and acacia emerge, while the texture, highlighted by zinging acidity, broadens with elements of limestone and chalk. It would be nice if the wine offered more in the way of refreshing delicacy and elegance, but that’s a stylistic choice; this is for those who prefer a sparkling wine with a more weighty, smoky mature-feeling. 12 percent alcohol. Very Good+. About $24.

Imported by Biagio Cru and Estate Wines — and don’t you know Diageo Chateau and Estate Wines loves that — Roslyn Heights, N.Y. A sample for review.

Damn, This Was Good, #27: Fish Tacos and Riesling Spätlese

Fredric Koeppel — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:45:51 +0000

Last night LL made fish tacos, a filet of trigger fish, to be precise, purchased at the Memphis Farmers Market, lightly dredged in flour and sauteed to golden brown. Accompanied by diced red onion, chopped radicchio and baby spinach, fresh thyme and oregano from our new herb garden, with excellent store-bought medium-spicy salsa. No added salt, which we are trying to avoid. Now, what wine to drink with these fish tacos? Taking a risk, I withdrew the Balthasar Ress Schloss Reichartshausen Riesling Spätlese 2009, Rheingau, from the white wine fridge, thinking that its presumed touch of sweetness would balance the mild spiciness of the tacos, assuming that this was not a terrifically sweet Spätlese, as they can be, and hoping for the balancing power and energy of acidity and mineral elements. The year was nearly perfect in weather and ripening in Germany’s wine regions, but the crop was smaller than any of the preceding five years, with the harvest in Rheingau less by 22 percent compared to 2008. The intensity such conditions can supply shows up in spades in this medium-gold-colored, ripe and spicy riesling that offers fine purity of peach, pear and roasted lemon scents and flavor with tantalizing hints of jasmine, lychee and petrol. On entry, the wine is slightly honeyed and only moderately sweet, feeling more floral, ripe and spicy (cloves and allspice) than definitively sweet; that effect modulates nicely from mid-palate back as the bristling, lip-smacking acidity and scintillating mineral character takes hold, leading to the sense that you’re drinking the essence of limestone and flint minerality. Balthasar Ress was founded in 1870 in Hattenheim and is now run by the family’s fifth generation in the business. Schloss Reichartshausen, an ancient site once owned by the Cistercian monastery Kloster Eberbach, is an independent community rather than an individual wineyard and is wholly owned — a monopole — by the Balthasar Ress estate. 10.5 percent alcohol. Drink now through 2020 to ’22. Excellent. About $22, representing Good Value.

A sample for review.

Wine of the Week

Fredric Koeppel — Mon, 06 May 2013 19:05:17 +0000

Looking for a cheap, decent drinkable red wine to pour with ribs, grilled pork chops, barbecue and burgers and pizza? Here ’tis. The Grove Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon 2010, which carries a general California designation, so don’t ask where the grapes originated, is one of Bronco Wine Co.’s long roster of labels; in this case, winemaker is Kimberly Sapp, and to her I say brava for bringing in a well-made wine at this price. A bit of eccentricity is involved: on the Bronco website, we’re told that the grape blend it 76.9 percent cabernet sauvignon (barely qualifying the wine to be labeled as cabernet sauvignon); 13.6 percent “Proprietor’s Dry Red” and wouldn’t we all like to know what that means; and 9.5 percent segalin, and if at this point My Readers are muttering “wha’ da fuck” I certainly cannot blame them. Segalin — Education Alert! — is a cross of the grape varieties Juraçon noir and Portugais bleu and is used as a blending grape in Southwest France; I had to look it up. Anyway, the Grove Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 offers a dark ruby color; intense and concentrated scents and flavors of black currants, black cherries and plums, with some wild spicy, fruity note in there; a slightly smoky, fleshy character; moderately dense and chewy tannins with undertones of graphite; and clean vibrant acidity. I mean, what more do you want? 13 percent alcohol. Drink now through the end of 2013. Very Good. About $10 but often discounted to $8. A Real Bargain.

A sample for review.