July 16th, 2010

What Angels Drink

2003 Château d’Yquem Sauternes

Where to begin?

First, the name. There are a handful of wines that I have specifically put on a bucket list. Wines I want to drink before I die. Names like Château Petrus, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Dom Pérignon, Château Cheval Blanc, and, yes, Château d’Yquem.

Second, the style of wine. Sauternes is botrytized semillon and sauvignon blanc (this one is 80% of the former, 20% of the latter) and it’s delicious. I wrote up a Sauternes-style wine from Sonoma County, and I’d still recommend that wine without hesitation. However, this… this is something else.

Let me just burst any bubble you might have here: this is expensive wine. This is world-renowned, expensive wine. A 375ml half-bottle of 2003 Château d’Yquem is $150–$200.

OK, so what’s it like?

First, the color is a perfect gold. It’s truly gorgeous. Swirling the glass even lightly shows the viscosity one would expect from a dessert wine. No surprises here.

The surprises begin when you get your face anywhere near this stuff. The nose is soft and lustrous, and shows off a lightly sweet honey note, along with a hint of bright, sharp cheese, and a nuttiness that comes off to me like candied cashews. I am so excited to be able to use candied cashews in a wine review.

The wine is full-bodied, but not heavy. It doesn’t coat your mouth, it just kind of covers the whole thing. Does that not sound dissimilar to you? I’m not sure how else to describe this mouthfeel—it is both full-bodied and light on the tongue. And I’m not sure how.

Notes of honey and nuttiness from the nose mix with a hint of lemon zest, but more than that, with a caramel note that, like the rest of this wine, stays light and soft while also feeling downright elegant. Luxury in a glass.

I wish this wine was less expensive. I wish I could have it all the time. But, like many of the world’s finest things, high demand must be counterbalanced by high cost, because it is simply impossible to make enough of something this good to satisfy everyone who wants some.

However, if you have a chance to drink this wine—whether at $400/bottle or $40/glass—give it a go. I cannot imagine the 2003 Château d’Yquem disappointing anyone.

Verdict: A+

2003 Château d'Yquem Sauternes

2003 Château d'Yquem Sauternes

Tags: 2003, A+, Barsac, Chateau d'Yquem, Sauternes, sauvignon blanc, semillon

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July 1st, 2010

School’s In Session

2008 L’Ecole No 41 Columbia Valley Semillon

Semillon grapes

On the first full day of the Wine Bloggers’ Conference, the assembled wine blog whateverspherites were—well, treated, I suppose—to a white wine “speed-tasting” round. 12 white wines in the course of 1 hour is a marathon that I’m not sure I’d want to do again. It was a huge crowded room, 30-or-so tables of 6-8 bloggers each, and the winery representatives had five minutes to give us their spiel.

One wine—and I think the fact that it was the first that I tasted cannot go unmentioned—truly stood out for me. In fact, this classic Bordeaux-style blend of 89% semillon and 11% sauvignon blanc was among the best Washingtonian whites that I tasted over the long weekend.

L’Ecole No 41 is a winery located in Frenchtown, WA, just outside of Walla Walla, named after the schoolhouse the winery now occupies (“l’ecole” is French for “the school”) and the Washington school district number that the schoolhouse once belonged to.

Founded in 1983, L’Ecole No 41 is one of the original wineries in the Walla Walla area, having opened for business before the Walla Walla Valley AVA was even officially codified.

But enough of the winery; what of the wine? The winery’s historical place in the Walla Walla Valley AVA notwithstanding, this particular wine is made from grapes grown in the Columbia Valley AVA.

The wine is a very light straw yellow in the glass, and the nose features notes of melon and of a light—faint, even—honey sweetness. The wine is medium-bodied and tastes fresh and bright. Melon and pair dance on the palate, and a pleasant minerality keeps everything in check.

The wine would be an A-, but there is one problem: it’s hot. The 2008 L’Ecole No 41 Semillon clocks in at 14.2% ABV, very high for a white wine in general, and not balanced very well. It drinks hot, and while I would love to recommend it with food like seafood pasta, the alcohol level makes that difficult.

Still, it’s a very good wine on its own merits. Well recommended.

Verdict: B+

Tags: 2008, Columbia Valley, L'Ecole No 41, sauvignon blanc, semillon

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May 20th, 2010

You Have Never Tasted A White Dessert Wine Like This

2000 Ferrari-Carano Eldorado Gold

You really haven’t. And, that’s not necessarily a good thing. The 2000 Eldorado Gold is the older cousin of one of the best white dessert wines I’ve ever had. But it couldn’t be less like its relative.

The vinoteca at Ferrari-Carano

The vinoteca at Ferrari-Carano

Everything about this place is visually stunning. Moving on.

OK, you know how sometimes siblings look nothing alike? My brother and I don’t look much alike, at least at first glance. Billy and Alec Baldwin look hardly similar. And the girl in that 90s doo-wop longhaired pop outfit “Hanson” looks very little like her brothers.

Same here. While the 2007 Eldorado Gold bellows out its message of world peace, goodwill towards all, and honey and vanilla, the 2000 has an entirely different agenda.

Peppers.

The wine is a tawny gold in the glass, more than a shade darker than its younger. On the nose are—and no, I’m not making this up—pimento, manzanilla olive, and jalapeno. Yeah, I thought I was crazy too, but try it and see.

The palate offers up those same notes, but with at least an appearance of the sweetness one expects from a botrytized, Sauternes-style dessert wine. Think pepper jelly, which is really quite nice.

Of all the wines I’ve had, this one as much as or more than any other comes off as “I might like it, but others will not.” Maybe you’re one of those others, maybe not. It’s worth a shot if you can get your hands on it. Just be prepared.

It’s like nothing else you’ve tried.

Verdict: B

(photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnjoh/ / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Tags: 2000, B, Dry Creek Valley, Ferrari-Carano, sauvignon blanc, semillon

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May 6th, 2010

Rotten Grapes At Their Best

2007 Ferrari-Carano Eldorado Gold

The Villa at Ferrari-Carano

Sometimes a wine is evocative of its place in this world. And I don’t mean in some figurative, allegorical way, like we all have a “place” or whatever; I mean it evokes a literal, physical place. Its home.

That’s the villa at the Ferrari-Carano Winery in Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma. It’s pretty impressive, as are the rest of the grounds and the pair of tasting rooms.

My wife and I visited, and befriended a fellow with a French accent named Philippe down in the Reserve tasting room where they serve up the good shit. I’m not saying the other wines at F-C are plonk, but then, I don’t know. What I do know is that this particular wine—a white dessert wine in the Sauternes style—is fantastic.

It was the last of a series of wines I tasted while sitting in the underground tasting bar surrounded by people who—by virtue of my eavesdropping, I could tell—knew a lot less about wine than they were trying to let on to their guests, or dates, or whathaveyou. In my experience, the more crowded a tasting bar is, the more likely you are to be around people pulling shit like that; partially this is because the more crowded the bar is, the more people there are, and because it’s harder to pull the ear of someone who works there, interested as they are in educating and chatting up their wine.

I think this is why Philippe liked me. Not necessarily because I know anything more or less than some of the others present, but because I don’t pretend to know what I don’t. I like to think that’s apparent when you meet me. So when I asked him if this wine, made up as it is of 90% semillon and 10% sauvignon blanc, was indeed botrytized, he smiled in the affirmative, and I knew I was in for a treat.

Botrytized? If you don’t know, the fungus that rots semillon grapes to give Sauternes wine its distinct sweetness is called botrytis cinerea, or “noble rot.” So it is with Ferrari-Carano’s Eldorado Gold.

As rich and golden as its namesake, the Eldorado Gold gives off the most incredible white raisins and vanilla on the nose. There’s a hint of honey, and a chalklike minerality that could have come straight off the white terrace out front of the villa.

I took a sip expecting great things, and got them: the Eldorado Gold is medium bodied and features dried apricot, honey, caramel and vanilla. The residual sugar makes itself present but doesn’t kill off all the good aromas and flavors that make the wine a delight.

Verdict: A-

(photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elcapitan/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Tags: 2007, A-, Ferrari-Carano, sauvignon blanc, semillon, Sonoma County

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