Slovenia

When we think of Slovenia, if we think of it at all, Melania Trump may be what comes to mind.  We need to expand our horizons.  Slovenia, like so many other eastern European countries, has fine wines that probably rank with the better known examples from France and Italy.

The Slovenian type we are most familiar with is Pinot Grigio.  The grape originated in northern France centuries ago and migrated east showing distinction only sporadically, like in Alsace and Alto Adige, Italy.  Ordinary Pinot is light, simple and without distinction.  In Slovenia, adjacent to Italy to the east, it's fatter, richer, softer and ideal for lazy afternoon porch sitting.

Other successful wine grapes in Slovenia include Riesling and Pinot Noir and some native types that are probably as good or better than the acclaimed types but we won't see them here because they won't sell in this market.  Spelling and pronounciation are the issue.  Slovenian names for places and things are kind of hard to digest.  But because they have a winemaking history that goes back to the 4th-5th centuries B.C., you have to assume they know what they're doing.  

We have two types in the store right now, a Pinot Noir and a Dry Riesling.  They are both 100% varietal wines, sourced from eastern Slovenia just south of Austria.  The climate there is continental, featuring great temperature variation and windy steep hillside vineyards suitable for blowing off pests and fungi.  The soils are marl, clay and sand.

The Sanctum Pinot Noir has a bright cranberry and vegetal nose with an elegant and intense mouthfeel featuring a garden salad of vegetable and spice flavors.  It would complement soups, stews, sauces and gravies and most any red meat dishes.

The Joannes Protner Riesling has a floral nose with pronounced stone fruit and petroleum.  Those structured flavors become electrified on the palate when combined with the wine's chalky minerality.

Demarie & Roero

Paolo Demarie is a third generation winemaker for his family-owned Demarie wine company.  Their easy drinking Barbera d'Alba Superiore has been a staple here at the store for the last couple years.    Only recently have we learned how good their Langhe Nebbiolo is; first from our vendor and then from our customer base who tried it.  So rest assured, the Nebbiolo should be a fixture here for the foreseeable future.

Demarie owns twenty-nine hectares of vineyards in Vezza d'Alba in the Roero district of Piedmont, the finest wine region of Italy.  Only two grapes are allowed in Roero; Italy's great red, Nebbiolo, and Piedmont's great white, Arneis.  Plantings in Roero tend to favor Arneis three to one over Nebbiolo so since both the Demarie Barbera and Nebbiolo carry appellations other than Roero, it's safe to assume it's mostly Arneis growing in the estate vineyards.  Italian wine law is loose enough though to assume some of the Demarie estate Nebbiolo can find its way into both the Barbera and Nebbiolo.

The Roero wine appellation has a continental climate with steep hillside vineyards with sandy, calcareous clay.  It is located in south-central Piedmont which is in the upper western corner of Italy.  Both our Barbera d'Alba and Langhe Nebbiolo are sourced within a mile of Roero.  Langhe is adjacent to Roero to the southwest; d'Alba is due south.  Demarie also owns vineyards in Italy's two premier wine regions, Barolo and Barbaresco, which lie an equidistant three miles away to the southeast and southwest.  As should be obvious at this point, this is not a bad neighborhood to be in.

Demarie has a versatile food-friendly wine style that aims for elegance and finesse while basically complementing any meal on the dinner table.  This model for both the Barbera and Nebbiolo makes it a sure winner for most of our needs.  When you consider how tannic some of those gold standard Barolos and Barbarescos can be, the Demarie style is a pure delight.

Grana Padana

I'm sure we've written about this generic Parmesan in the past but it's probably time for a revisit.  Grana Padana is essentially a cheaper version of Reggiano.  Because of its lower cost, restaurants everywhere use it instead of Reggiano as a rule.  While Reggiano is sourced from a delimited region of the Po River Valley, Grana Padana is sourced from a greatly expanded region of the same valley.  The name Padana literally refers to the Po Valley and grana means grainy.  

Grana Padana was developed by monks back in the twelfth century.  It's geographical catchment area has been legally defined since 1954 and its European Union PDO (protected designation of origen) was granted in 1996.  

There are 150 cheese factories that make Grana Padana and they are regulated across producers.  These regulations are less strict than Reggiano but much remains the same.  Grana Padana is made with unpasteurized cow's milk and is aged nine months to two years.  The curd is pelletized and stirred into the milk for texture.  Tyrosine, leucine and isoleucine crystals form as the cheese dries out with aging.  These are amino acids that are then synthesized by our cells into proteins.

What we get from these crystals is a delightful gritty, grainy crunch that augments the intensely nutty sweet and savory flavors of the cheese.  With aging the cheese flavors become more complex and the texture becomes more crumbly.

Grana Padana, of course, is Parmesan so its utility in the kitchen is wide ranging.  Beverage accompaniments would include most import quality red and white wines and most any good quality malt brews.

Tobias

We just got in three types from Tobias Vineyards of Ukiah, California, at least that is where their winery is located.  Principle owners Tobias and Dawn Pauli Forman own forty-three acres near the top of Howell Mountain which could rightfully be called their family estate.  

Both Tobias and Dawn come from wine royalty.  Tobias is the son of Ric Forman, legendary winemaker for Sterling and Newton Vineyards.  Dawn comes from five generations of grape growers in Mendocino.  She is part owner in her Pauli family business which has vineyard holdings in Napa and Sonoma in addition to Mendocino.   Her father is the former CEO of Souverain Vineyards and a past president of the California Farm Bureau Federation.  Both were raised in the family business and are hands-on in every aspect of their enterprise today.

The three types we brought in are the Lexi's Estate Sauvignon Blanc, the Blue Oaks Vineyard Chardonnay and the 2017 Tobias Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon.  We chose not to carry the Tobias Formations Cabernet Sauvignon, thinking it paled beside the Howell estate wine.  Both the Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay are sourced from Pauli Mendocino vineyards and show their breeding.  The Sauvignon Blanc features complex, well-structured and balanced fruit with minerality.  The Chardonnay is floral and almondy and balanced with noticeable oak.  They are both centerpiece wines.

In 2014 the Formans purchased what was then called Vogt Vineyards near the top of Howell Mountain.  That vineyard was originally planted in 1997.  Since renamed Pauli Vineyard, it is now planted entirely in Cabernet Sauvignon, using five different clones for enhanced complexity.  If high-end Napa Cab is your thing, you should try this one!

Matchbook "The Arsonist" Red Blend

Some times we just have to laugh at ourselves.  Matchbook is a fairly well known California winery so we were shocked that their Arsonist Red Blend was sourced from Dundee Hills, Oregon.  Wanting to learn more, we started researching Dundee Hills until we learned seventy-seven percent of their grapes were Pinot Noir.  Huh?  This wine isn't pinot.  Oh...Dunnigan Hills, not Dundee Hills!

Then we started researching Dunnigan Hills, a California AVA where the giant in the industry there is R. H. Phillips.  Since we thought the Matchbook packaging resembled an R. H. Phillips product, we went that route only to learn Matchbook isn't from Phillips.  It is a standalone estate.  For that matter, we also learned R. H. Phillips isn't R. H. Phillips anymore since it has been sold twice, most recently to Constellation which transferred winemaking to their mega-facility at Woodbridge fifty miles away.

As we said, Matchbook is an estate and the red blend asserts its bonafides right on the label.  If a label says "estate bottled" then you better believe everything about the making of that wine is done on the property.  In this industry, that matters.  It's quality control.   

The grape composition for The Arsonist Red Blend is half Petit Verdot (pet-tee vur-doe) with equal parts Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec.  What's interesting there is that large percentage of Petit Verdot.  Historically Petit Verdot has been limited to no more than ten percent of the traditional blend.  It is a full-bodied, strongly flavored grape that adds punch to the mid-palate of a wine.  In the warmer Mediterranean climate of California's Dunnigan Hills, however, it ripens earlier moderating some of the stronger character traits.  

In a typical Bordeaux blend, Petit Verdot adds color, tannins and floral aromas to the mix with flavors that might include plum, sage, lavender, black cherry and dried herbs.  The grape originated in southwest France but is now planted on every continent.  As we said earlier, in the warmer Mediterranean climates it is softer which probably accounts for its predominance in The Arsonist blend.

The Judgment of Berlin

Twenty-eight years after the earthshaking "Judgment of Paris" wine tasting in 1976, a similar tectonic shift took place in 2004 Berlin.  If you recall, it was the Stag's Leap Wine Cellars 1974 Napa Cabernet Sauvignon that won Best of Show back in '76 sending the wine world recoiling into a protracted spell of the heebee-jeebies.  Back then California was a primitive backwater, unworthy to be on the same table as sophisticated Europe.  In 2004 Berlin it was Chile's time to play "David" to King Europe's "Goliath."  Chile took the top two places out of a field of sixteen of the finest wines in the world at Berlin.

The prevailing wisdom with regard to Chilean wines is that they are a great value.  We consider ourselves to be very much in that camp.  We even extend our valuation to their finer, higher ticket types that compete at higher price points.  Recently we sold through a case of Apaltagua Domus Aurea at eighty dollars a bottle.  That fine red would have compared well with acclaimed types at fifty dollars higher.  So as much as we enjoy our Chilean wines, we have to admit we think of them in relative terms, with the underlying assumption being that the other one, the one the Chilean is being compared to, is really the better wine.

The Berlin quaff-off was the project of Eduardo Chadwick of Vina Errazuriz located in the Aconcagua Valley of Chile, forty or so miles north of Santiago.  Among the French wine glitterati Chadwick had the audacity to challenge were Bordeaux Chateaux Lafite, Latour and Margaux.  Among the Italian Super Tuscans were Tignanello and Sassacaia.  Of course, it was a blind tasting and the judges were beyond reproach.  

Think Chadwick had any anxieties as the first glass was poured?  He claims it would have been a crushing defeat if his wines failed to measure up.  We're not so sure.  Chile isn't really supposed to compete with first world wines, is it?

The number one wine at the Judgment of Berlin tasting was the 2000 Vinedo Chadwick, a 100% Cabernet Sauvignon effort.  Number two was Chadwick's 2001 Sena, a Bordeaux blend featuring 75% Cabernet.  Number three was the 2000 Chateau Lafite.  Number four was the 2001 Margaux.  Five was the Sena 2000.  Six was Chadwick 2001 and down at number nine was Chadwick's Dom Maximiano.  So out of sixteen of the world's best wines; six Chileans, six French and four Italians; Chile scored five of the top ten.  Not Bad.

Since then the tastings have been repeated twenty-two times around the world and the Chileans have repeated similar results to Berlin.  Fifty-five percent of the time they dominate the top five and 90% of the time they place in the top three.  Not bad.

Chile

We got some updated numbers on Chilean wine sales recently.  Depending on the news source, Chile is either the fourth or fifth largest wine exporter in the world behind Spain, Italy and France but still ahead of the United States.  They are also either the third or fourth largest importer into this country behind France and Italy and perhaps Australia.  So how did they rise to such heights when they only control 4.6% of the worldwide wine market?

The Chilean wine industry was started by Spanish settlers in the 16th century.  It was a thoroughly domestic market they served for centuries before American demand changed things in the 1980's and 90's.  A 180 degree turn followed when American investment from our industry leaders led to purchases of specific vineyards and wineries AND purchases of bulk wine.  20-25% of Chile's exports have been bulk wine imports to America, China and elsewhere.  So, after centuries of being a domestic-consumption wine country, Chile turned into a global player seemingly overnight.

So where do huge tanks of bulk wine go when imported by American wineries?  They are worked into California wines where, unless the label says estate bottled, only 75% of the wine in the bottle needs to be sourced from California.  Why supplement with Chilean juice?  Two reasons: The stuff is good, better than the bulk wine from California's Central Valley.  Secondly, when a label achieves mass market appeal and the sales numbers indicate a juggernaut going forward, the giant industry players will pay millions of dollars for that label.  They are, in effect, betting their future on it.  Then they need to fill those bottles as economically as they can to make their venture profitable.  Chilean wine is perfect for that purpose.