Cabernet Franc (Balance & Elegance)

This isn't new territory for us.  Not by a long shot.  With more than forty years in the business, our paths with Cabernet Franc have crossed many times.  This current excursion just adds some new interesting stuff to what we already had.

Such as: Some time ago Cab Franc had a mutative crossing with Sauvignon Blanc in a vineyard somewhere in western France resulting in the birth of the Cabernet Sauvignon varietal.  We now know Cab Franc also parented both Merlot and Carmenere.  What we learned is that Cabernet Franc has an unstable genome; not as unstable as Pinot Noir, but still capable of mutating on occassion.

We have also learned more about the birthplace of Cab Franc.  We always knew it was from somewhere in western France.  We now know the place to be toward the south, perhaps in the Libournais (right bank) region of Bordeaux or further south toward the Basque region.  So we've narrowed it down.  Date of birth?  Written documentation of the type exists in the eighteenth century so it may go back to the seventeenth.

The right bank of Bordeaux is home to the most expensive wine in the world, Chateau Petrus.  Saint Emilion, Pomerol and to a lesser extent, Fronsac, all feature Cabernet Franc as part of a blend that elevates Merlot to its proper place as a fine wine grape.  So is Cabernet Franc just a blending grape?  Well, yes and no.  You can't deny right bank success, so yes, it is a blending grape par excellence!  (BTW: Italy is doing something similar with Cabernet Franc in their Super Tuscan blends.)  Granting that, to fully appreciate any bit player in a blend, you really need to look at the grape as a varietal in itself.  That's where our "balance and elegance" post subtitle comes in.

The finest varietal Cabernet Franc wine in the world comes from the cooler climate Loire Valley to the north where it makes a lighter colored, lighter bodied, higher acid red that features a somewhat bell peppery, tart fruit character.  It's food wine, for sure.   Pair it with steak, sausage, roast bird.  To the south in the warmer climes, a richer bodied wine emerges with cherry and dark berry flavors.  It is those qualities that endear Cab Franc grapes to the wine blenders of the world.  That and the sturdy reliability of the plant.

Cabernet Franc, like Cabernet Sauvignon, is planted everywhere there is a winemaking culture.  Its popularity explains the Cab Sauv plantings; its durability and reliability explain Cab Franc.  Look at it as an insurance policy: If the Cab Sauv crop turns out to be not so good, you can fall back on the earlier harvested Cab Franc.

But there's more: Bell pepper is a wine flavor not everyone appreciates.  Some consider it to be a flaw in the Cab Franc profile.  As it turns out, that flavoring pays dividends for the grape vine.  Methoxypyrazines are aromatic compounds responsible for the bell pepper effect.  They are also reponsible for the durability and reliability of the vine as they repel pests.  So there you have it.  You want healthy productive grape vines?  Accept a little pepper in your wines.

Still want to avoid the bell pepper?  Cellar your Cabernet Franc for five years or so.  That element along with the acidity should diminish.

(Much of the above was taken from winefolly.com which we wholeheartedly recommend.)

Marcona Almonds

Well, this is a first.  It's always been about wines or cheeses here at the ol' blogspot but since we got in another load of Marcona Almonds, it definitely makes sense to promote them here.

In a way the almond history parallels the wine history we depicted in the recent Phoenicians post.  This time the history starts in the early Bronze Age around 3-4,000bc in Jordan where almond trees were first domesticated.  They were then propagated throughout Iran and the region on the eastern side of the Mediterranean Sea called Levant.  Maybe the Phoenicians, the world's the first wine traders, got in on the ground floor of the almond business too.

There are two types of almond trees.  The older variety produces bitter fruit that actually contains cyanide.  The one that has the sweeter fruit, not surprisingly, is the variety that was propagated.  Almonds are not true nuts, by the way.  They are drupes, seeds within a larger fruit, comparable to a peach pit.  In fact, the almond tree falls into the same classification as peach trees.  

Almond trees require a Mediterranean climate of hot summers and cold wet winters and that has been the historic weather of the Central Valley of California.  California has a million acres planted in almond trees which produce 2.8 billion pounds of almonds annually, that's 80% of the world's almonds.  That production is good for an income of 4.9 billion dollars, making it California's most valuable product...but not for long.  The trees require a lot of rain and, of course, currently the state has little.  Almonds are not sustainable in the current climate so most people think the end is in sight for California almonds. 

But that's not what this post is about.  Marcona Almonds are from Spain and they are different from other types.  They are shorter, rounder, softer, sweeter and moister AND they are nutritionally dense.  They are a superfood that we will spare you chapter and verse about here.  Suffice it to say, they are packed with vitamins and minerals and may reduce heart disease by lowering LDL cholesterol.

Marcona Almonds have a butteriness in texture, aroma and flavor that works well with cheeses.  If you want to pair them with wines, Champagne and Sherries are proven affiliates.  We think white wines in general might be worth a try.

Ventisquero Pinot Noir Reserva

This is one of those everyday-priced wines that shows the quality of a higher priced model, like their twenty-five dollar version.  Since we've tasted the two side by side, we feel we can safely say, it's basically the same stuff.  And by the way, the higher tier pinot is no slouch.

Ventisquero means "glacier" in the local Chilean dialect and it refers to the great glaciers of Patagonia which they feel symbolize character and a perfect balance of movement, energy and force.  Since we're talking Pinot Noir here, let's just stay with character and balance.

Vina Ventisquero was established in 1998 by Gonzalo Vial, CEO of a major fresh foods company.  Their flagship vineyard and winery was constructed in coastal Maipo Valley but in quick order they purchased vineyard land in the Leyda, Casablanca, Colchagua and Huasco Valleys.  Today they have 1500 hectares (3700 acres) in vines.  They export one and a half million cases of wine annually.

Now called Ventisquero Wine Estates, it is one of the five largest in Chile and while their growth has been explosive, it has also been thoughtful.  Felipe Tosso is the head winemaker who has been with the company from the beginning.  Australian winemaker John Duval came along a couple years later.  Both have impeccable resumes reflecting employment with some of the great wineries of the world.  Together they use their own soil-mapping methods to get the right varietals placed in the perfect locales for optimal terroir-driven results.  The vineyards for our Pinot Noir are along the coast of Casablanca where the ocean's cooling Humbolt Current moderates the temperatures for that cool weather grape.

Chile is bordered by the Pacific Ocean on the left and the Andes Mountains to the right.  Because of their unique geography, they never were affected by the phylloxera louse that killed nearly all of the vines of Europe in the late 1800s.  The louse that brought the disease to Europe then proceeded to decimate the rest of the world.  Chile is the only wine producing nation to be unaffected.  They are the only wine producers who have not had to graft their vines onto American disease resistent rootstocks; so the theory goes that the production of Chile is emblematic of what European wine was pre-Phylloxera.

Thermovinification

Your new fifty cent word for the day is thermovinification and the process is just what it sounds like, the application of heat to the winemaking process.  Actually heat has always been a part of the process if you consider what happens when you pile up grape bunches and maybe allow a whole bunch fermentation to happen.  Heat is inescapable in this common winemaking practice.  Thermovinification though is the deliberate use of near boiling temperatures to alter grape chemistry before fermentation.

Ten years ago we wrote about Flash Detente, Italian technology that flashed a blast of 185 degree steam heat onto grapes, then immediately cooling them.  It was, more or less, an instantaneous de-contamination.  The process effectively dealt with the problems of Brettanomyces taint and pyrazines in unripe grapes.  At the time there were just two of the contraptions in California.  Now there are much more.  Thermovinification is a little different.  It is often a one hour "pre-fermentation hot maceration."  Though not as hot as Flash Detente, it effectively extracts anthocyanins (red pigments) for enhanced color and phenolic compounds that affect the taste and mouthfeel of a wine.

So why are we writing about the subject now?  We recently met a North Georgia winemaker who educated us a bit about the stuff which, as often happens, lead us to investigate further.

We now have a fifty year window on the wine industry and we've seen huge changes in wine quality and wine business dynamics.  What heat in the winemaking process has done is to clean up ordinary grapes by breaking down cellular walls to release the better qualities in those ordinary grapes.  If the heating is overdone the wines will taste cooked and there are plenty of examples of that on store shelves.  But if done right, the heat bonds red and blue colors into a brighter purple; it boosts the berry fruitiness of the wine and it leaves tannins that are softer and rounder than before.

While all of this seems to be good, wines that are so treated show less complexity over all and a uniformity that may be considered to be the commodification of wines in general.  Wines so treated become the singular "new normal" style.  Distinction goes out the window.  Since heat treatment shows its greatest value in making ordinary grapes palatable, then the great beneficiary of the process on the business side of things is the large wine industry player.  They can profitably over-crop a harvest and then remediate it with thermovinification.

California Red Blends

No research for this one - shooting straight from the hip.

If you rule out what they are doing with Pinot Noir nowadays, there are basically two types of red blends coming out of California.  The kind I grew up with and still remember fondly is what is loosely called a field blend.  It is a mixture of blue collar grapes like Zinfandel, Syrah, Petite Sirah, Carignan and others that just happen to be available for that purpose.  It's kitchen sink wine.  The second type of red blend is the classic Cabernet-Merlot blend that may include the other three Bordeaux grapes and now, acceptably, Syrah.

Let's dig deeper.

What was so charming about the historic field blend was the naturalness of the product.  You took from the vineyard what it gave you and made a wine out of it.  For the consumer, it seemed to just happen.  You could enjoy the wine in a number of settings as long as your pretentions were held in check.

Fifty years ago one of the great sellers on store shelves everywhere was Gallo Hearty Burgundy.  It was a field blend, we were told, that was mostly Zinfandel.  In the trade this off-dry, muddy mess was jokingly called Hardly Burgundy.  With the right promotional prompting, however, it would become a most successful subterfuge.  

Since Gallo created this model and other large players jumped on the bandwagon, we now have a style of red blend that is a direct descendent of Hearty Burgundy.  Advancements in winemaking technology and the advent of wine laboratories along with promotional efforts keyed to social media and elsewhere have made this model ubiquitous across America.  Needless to say, we are not a fan.

Meritage or Bordeaux blends, the Cabernet-Merlot blends mentioned above, are a completely different project.  Field Blends are wine for the people; Meritage wines, with their structure and breeding, seem to be intended for the aristocracy.  And since Cabernet Sauvignon is, after all, one of the half dozen noble grapes of the world, it seems to make sense.  

The Meritage wine category was officially created in 1988 in California.  It was intended to approximate the Bordeaux model that has been around since the 18th century.  This kind of wine shows breeding, refinement and structure from nose to finish.

The Parings (Central Coast), Matthews Claret (Washington) and Girard Artistry (Napa) are Meritage wines currently in the store.  Angels & Cowboys (Sonoma) and True Grit (Mendocino) are a couple of reputable field blends in the store.  All are to be recommended.

Knudsen, Erath & Argyle

Knudsen and Argyle are both Oregon pinots on our store shelves currently and Erath has been an old standby here for a long time.  Let's tie them all together.  All three are located in the Dundee Hills wine appellation within the larger Willamette Valley.  The very first commercial winery in Dundee Hills was Knudsen, established in 1975.  Very shortly thereafter Knudsen partnered with Erath to create the Knudsen-Erath wine company which produced great pinots until 1987.  Then Knudsen reverted to grower status and became a primary grape supplier to Erath.  Argyle is the most awarded winery in Oregon and when Knudsen re-created their family-named wine label in 2014, they did it using Argyle's winemaker.

Dundee Hills is home to forty-four wineries currently with half of them being household names to Oregon pinot lovers.  The three listed in our title are certainly among the best.  Located south of Portland in the northwestern part of the Willamette Valley, Dundee Hills is indeed a very special wine venue.  It lies at a higher elevation than most of the valley; has a maritime climate, courtesy of the Pacific Ocean; and it has Jory soil, three different clays with organic matter on top.  The appellation contains seven thousand acres with thirteen hundred currently in vines.

Oregon has the strictest wine laws in the country.  If a wine is labeled as a varietal, the wine in the bottle must be at least 90% of that varietal.  If a wine appellation is shown on a label, the contents must be 95% from that place.  If a label says "Oregon" it must be 100% Oregon wine.  This contrasts with California where only 75% has to be what the label says it is and 25% of the contents don't even have to be California wine.

Now here's what we learned about Oregon wines while researching the subject: The Willamette Valley appellation name is a legally protected product IN EUROPE!  It has PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) status due to both the uniqueness of the terroir and traditional winemaking and the stringency of Oregon's laws.  The only other American wine venue to be so protected is Napa Valley.  With this kind of protection in place, fraud and misrepresentation from parties unrelated to those places should not happen in Europe.

Goat Cheese & Wine

When the butteriness of a cheese gets cut by the acidity of a sip of red wine, it's like a new door of appreciation is opened for what the two bring together.  Of course, that kind of magic depends on the pairing.  Each wine and cheese combination is different and some work better than others.  In general though, the satisfaction derived from the experience relies on the acidity of the wine being neutralized by the butteriness of the cheese.  Every other characteristic in the exchange seems to take a back seat to that action.

With goat cheeses the equation changes a little and things get a bit more complicated.  Goat cheeses, themselves, are acidic and the latent butteriness and characteristics like minerality or fruitiness/herbaceousness may be subdued.  It's the acidity that needs to be reckoned with in this kind of wine pairing. 

Unlike the dominant richness of cow cheese, the acidity of goat requires a high acid wine to go head to head with it.  In the Loire Valley of France where a goat cheese/wine culture thrives, the reigning regional red and white wines of choice are Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc.  The Cabernet is a lighter style, herbaceous, tartly acidic version.  The Sauvignon Blanc is the familiar mineral-driven, citrussy style.  In both cases the acidity is the paramount quality needed to face up to the acidic cheese.

Just because every wine-cheese combination is different, that doesn't mean there isn't a familiarity with the experience that we all know.  Once our mouths get coated with cheese, every ensuing bite/sip reinforces an increasingly comfortable experience.  It's kind of like enjoying really stinky cheese.  Once you get it past your nose, it's smooth sailing.  You just let your taste buds do the rest.

So what are the wines to pair with goat cheese?  For acidity you definitely want to go European and as is so often the case, it's Italy that seems to get it right.  Virtually any Italian red or white would work with goat cheese.  With whites it's wide open.  Virtually any Euro dry white wine has the acidity to stand up to the wang of good goat cheese.

What prompts this post?  Well, it's the new cheeses in the store, of course.  They include a goat brie and a couple soft goat logs.  AND our incredible European wine selection!  So stop in!