Restaurant Review: Locanda Locatelli

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A late meal after a concert showed that this snazzy restaurant remains on top form food wise, but still attracts a rather noisy crowd, so be prepared for noise interference from other tables. We started out with a basket of interesting breads and excellent olive oil with that unmistakable green olive texture; the only other olive oil of this quality I’ve encountered was at Picholine in New York. This being one of London’s top Italian restaurants, we decided to go for broke, and started with the pasta, malfatti for my companion (a sort of slightly heavier pasta than ravioli rolled around ricotta and aubergine to make some delicious parcels) and chestnut tagliatelle with wild mushrooms for me (made with chestnut flour and five types of wild mushroom). The tagliatelle were faute de gnocchi because the gnocchi with cepes had all gone, and no doubt would have been a little lighter. (I am always reminded when having wild mushrooms of the time years ago when we ordered wild mushrooms as a starter at a restaurant in Cambridge, Mass. Simply sautéed, they made a wild assortment of colors and shapes on the plate, many I had never seen before. After we had eaten them, we asked about the source. “Oh, someone knocked at the door and said he had wild mushrooms and the chef bought them, “ said the waiter. We both went white for a moment, but decided that if they had been lethal they would have already killed us.)

We both ordered the same second course, wild sea bass in a tomato crust with an artichoke purée. This was accompanied by artichoke leaves to chew, something I have not seen for quite a while. Here was an excellent balance between fish and accompaniments, with the acidity of the tomatoes nicely cutting the opulence of the purée. Service is absolutely top notch. Overall I give the food one and a half stars: clearly above one star level, but not quite at the level of innovation and refinement for two stars.

The wine list is full of top names from Italy as you might expect, with many pages of red wines – especially strong on Barolo and Barbaresco – but not a whole lot of interesting choices in whites (of course, you might say that about Italy as a whole). A feature I really liked was that alcohol level was stated on the list, which saved me from an error: I was about to order a bottle of Fontodi’s Chianti, and then noticed that it had 15% alcohol. This would definitely have been a mistake, especially at the late hour. We settled for a half bottle of Valdicava’s Brunello, which at 13.5% showed subtlety and elegance. Wine service was impeccable.

Locanda is highly recommended if you can get a table – reservations are difficult; not only is it difficult to get through (booking is only by phone), but there tends to be some awkwardness about getting a table at the time you want it.

 Brunello di Montalcino, Valdicava 2004

Still quite a ruby color. A faintly savory sour cherry note develops on the palate, very Sangiovese. (Oh my goodness, they were right not to allow Cabernet Sauvignon into Rosso di Montalcino, it would have been the thin end of a wedge into typicité). The initial surge of fruits from the original release has calmed down considerably. Nice balance of acidity and savory edge to the cherry fruits, a fairly taut sense of structure, aging gracefully but perhaps not destined for a really old age (I think really long aging is much rarer for Brunello than generally supposed), although perhaps not to be judged on this example as this was a half bottle. 91, drink now-2016.

The Chameleon Grape: A Tale of Two Chardonnays

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I call Chardonnay the Chameleon grape because its character is so much more dependent on winemaking than place. Vinify Chardonnay at low temperature and you get tropical fruits; go to higher temperatures for a more classic repertoire. Mature in new oak for smoky overtones or a full-fledged rush of vanillin; use stainless steel for a crisper finish. Push malolactic fermentation for those buttery notes of popcorn; avoid it for sharp, citrus flavors. (Yes, I know that Chardonnay shows wonderful nuances of place in Burgundy, most notably in Puligny Montrachet, Chassagne Montrachet, and Meursault, but that does not counter my argument, since there is a commonality to winemaking in Burgundy.)

Dependence on winemaking becomes even more evident at lower price levels, where yields are higher, and vineyard origins rarely feature as determinants of style. The significant impact of the hand of the winemaker was brought forcefully home to me by two mid-priced Chardonnay’s consumed on successive days. The first was the L’Ecole No. 41 Chardonnay from Washington State, enjoyed (if that is the right word) on American Airlines between New York and London (The High Life: Wine at 37,000 feet). The second was Domaine Mont d’Hortes from the Languedoc, enjoyed with dinner at Galvins Bistro in London (Review of Galvin Bistrot de Luxe), the day after. American Airlines did not think vintage was important enough to state, but the Mont d’Hortes was the recent 2010 vintage. The American wine retails around $17 per bottle; the Languedoc Chardonnay is about half that price.

The L’Ecole No. 41 comes from Washington’s Columbia Valley. According to the producer, it comes from two vineyards, Schmitt Vineyard in Yakima Valley, “which provides tropical fruit,” and Evergreen Vineyard, “which contributes crisp acidity and minerality.” I buy the producer’s claim that these are cooler vineyards, because I could taste slightly herbaceous flavors in the wine, which I took to represent unripe grapes, although the harvest Brix of almost 26 (producing more than 14% alcohol) might rather suggest over ripe grapes. I can’t say that I could see the wine as “finely balanced between richness and minerality,” because for me it seems more to have a phenolic brutality to the finish, which did not exactly complement the food.

The Mont d’Hortes Chardonnay comes from the Vin de Pays des Côtes de Thongue, a minor Vin de Pays in the Languedoc, not far north of the Pyrenees. This is a somewhat warmer region, but the nose shows a tang of citrus, quite fresh with just a touch of phenolics on the finish. The palate is quite full, with a fairly rich impression. There is not a huge amount of flavor interest, and once again I found the phenolics to be a little too evident, but a decent balance allowed the wine to complement the food quite well. As evident from the price, this wine sees no oak aging, in contrast with the l’Ecole No. 41 which apparently was matured in two- and three-year old barriques.

I suspect the oak is the culprit! For a wine to carry any significant exposure to oak, the fruit has to have a certain concentration and intensity; otherwise the oak just sits on the surface in a disjointed way. Given the coast of oak barriques, it is awfully hard to justify their use on wines around the $15 level (the cost of a new barrique would amount to around 20% of the retail price, which is to say close to half of cost). I suspect my problem with the L’Ecole #41 was just too much strength coming from the oak relative to the fruit. My issue with the Mont d’Hortes was a bit different: there just didn’t seem to be any character to it that said “Chardonnay.” It is a perfectly reasonable quaffing wine, well made for the price, but I had the feeling the same wine could have been produced from any number of grape varieties with very little difference in the results. Southern heat did not show directly in high alcohol (which was stated as a moderate 13%), but it might be fair to say that it muddied the flavor spectrum. I am not sure that in the case of either wine I really see the point of growing Chardonnay just so you can stick the varietal name on the label, although the wine bears little relationship to those that made the variety famous. Has Chardonnay become a brand or even a commodity rather than a variety?

Restaurant Review: Galvin Bistrot de Luxe

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A really good bistro in some ways is of more interest to me than a Michelin starred restaurant. Of course, it’s great to eat out at the top levels, and leisurely evenings in elegant surroundings with fine food are one of my favorite pursuits, but there are many occasions when I’d like to have a more straightforward meal rather than eat at home. Arriving in London from New York, this was just such an occasion, and round the corner is Galvin Bistrot de Luxe. Opened six years ago by Chris Galvin (who used to cook at the Orrery long ago when it had a Michelin star), it has been a great success.

“De Luxe” is a fair description because it’s a far cry from bistros turning out the standard fare of roast chicken and fries. Granted the menu generally avoids more expensive ingredients: you won’t find venison or turbot here, and the meat dishes tend more to stews than filets, but I’ve never had a poor meal, and often some very good ones.

This meal we both started with the salad of beets and goat cheese, simple but well sourced, with nicely complementing flavors. (Most of the starters are cold, which seems appropriate for the bistro, although I do have a general view that once the Michelin-starred level is reached, a preponderance should be cooked on the spot. A cry should go up in the kitchen, “Lewin is here, let us cook his dinner,” rather than simply cutting a slice off something pre-prepared.)

Main courses were good with one caveat. My steamed fillets of Corsican bream, ragoût of sweet corn, courgette & saffron were simply excellent, in a  creamy sauce that would have done credit to a Michelin-starred restaurant. The fish tasted farmed rather than wild, but that’s an expected compromise at the bistro level. My wife’s pavé of cod, coco de Paimpol, trompette mushroom & Bayonne ham was successful as a composition, but slightly spoiled by gritty mushrooms that did not seem to have been properly cleaned. A blackcurrant mousse made a beautiful dessert, rather reminiscent in taste and texture of summer pudding, but smoother, with a  thin layer of underlying fruit.

Prices are very fair, especially allowing for the breadth of the wine list, which extends from decent choices at just over £20 to quite grand wines at vastly higher prices. In many ways, I think the measure of a restaurant wine list is more what it offers at the lower end than the higher end. Anyone can buy in the top Bordeaux or Burgundy if they are prepared to spend the money, but it takes knowledge and effort to find something good at the bottom end.

Apropos of stars, by the way, I’m far from the only person who finds Michelin’s awards to be erratic at the one star level.  Their original list of one star restaurants in New York was something of a joke, and the present London list is rather variable, to put it kindly. Galvin Bistrot is in that useful category I would give a three quarter star – but that said, it is significantly better than some one-starred restaurants in London that I’ve given up on.

The High Life: Wine at 37,000 feet

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Flying transatlantic isn’t a great opportunity for fine wine and dining, but there really isn’t much else to do on the flight besides eat, drink, and sleep, so I thought I’d make an assessment of the present state of the high life. Flying American Airlines from New York to London, en route to start research in Bordeaux for my book on Cabernet Sauvignon, my assessment got off to a poor start in the lounge before takeoff, when the sparkling wine was Gloria Ferrer Brut from Sonoma. Judged by the taste, Brut is clearly a misnomer. Sweet to the point of being sickly, the monotonic palate had a strong taste of green apples (although without the matching acidity you might expect), and if you had told me it was a sparkling apple cider, I would have been hard put to argue. There are some fine sparkling wines made in northern California, but this is not one of them, and proved to be a sad harbinger for what was to follow.

Things improved briefly after takeoff when the Champagne was Pommery. Now this has never been one of my favorites – it always used to strike me as too thin and lacking in fruit – but it has definitely improved since Vranken acquired the brand name in 1990. I don’t know whether taste is affected by the low pressure at altitude, but this now seems to be a respectable, if rather ordinary sparkling wine. There’s not much character to it, and the dosage is just a touch too high for my taste – I wonder whether my impression that dosage has been increasing is right or whether my palate has changed – giving an impression that sugar is being used to compensate for lack of flavor interest. The wine seems essentially uninteresting and its flat flavor profile gave me some trouble in trying to find descriptors for a tasting note. You don’t expect originality from Grand Marque Champagnes, but I still think Pommery could do a better job to disguise its mass produced origins.

The white wines offered a choice between L’Ecole No. 41 Chardonnay from Washington State and Thilion Torbato Sauvignon Blanc from Sardinia. I had some trouble distinguishing them. If I were to be unkind I would say that the Chardonnay was a forlorn attempt to achieve the New World style. The palate has been loaded with oak to disguise the lack of ripeness in the fruit. The oak flavors stand aside from the fruits, and if I didn’t know that the wine had been aged in barriques I would have wondered about the use of oak chips The oak gives a hard, disjointed, phenolic note to the finish. This is one of those rare wines that would have been improved by a shorter finish, as what mostly lingers on are those disjointed oak phenolics.

Despairing of the Chardonnay, I turned to my wife’s Sauvignon Blanc (actually a blend of Sauvignon Blanc with the indigenous grape Torbata), although its relatively deep golden color made me feel suspicious even before I tasted it. A sniff made things worse. Instead of the expected grassiness or herbaceousness came a sort of slightly astringent citrus note. Maybe this is due to the Torbata, which is supposed to have a smoky aroma. Again the palate was loaded with harsh phenolics. I would have placed this as an aromatic variety in a blind tasting, but I think I would have had some trouble recognizing Sauvignon Blanc in it. I wonder whether I would have been able to identify the wines, if I’d been given them blind and told that one was Chardonnay and one was a Sauvignon blend. It wouldn’t be easy to find varietal typicity in this pair, but perhaps the greater acidity and aromaticity would identify the Sauvignon.

On to the reds, where we tried the Villa Mount Eden Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa and the Tres Picos Garnacha. Now I remember a period in the late 1970s when Villa Mt. Eden had a great reputation. In fact, based on Robert Parker’s recommendation, I bought a case of the 1978 vintage and drank it for several years. It never achieved greatness, but was still holding up quite well in 1993 when I had the last bottle. Sic transit gloria mundi. I do not think the old style is remotely recognizable in the current wine. When I swirled and smelled the wine, I wondered if there had been a mistake as the aromas of black cherry fruits with some piquancy came up at me. No, I decided on smelling my wife’s wine, which was even more aromatic and piquant. Following to the palate, the Cabernet showed no more typicity of Cabernet than the Chardonnay had of Chardonnay. The only note of relief was an oaky vanillin that seemed artificial. I’ve never really thought of Cabernet Sauvignon as an intensely aromatic variety, but after this wine I might have to change my opinion. (To be fair, you can find some high-end Napa or Barossa Cabernets with fairly distinct aromatics, but although I don’t usually like the wines, at least I can recognize a matching concentration and fruit intensity that hangs together.)

After this, I approached the Grenache with trepidation. The only information American Airlines provided about its origins is that it is produced in Spain. It turns out to come from the Campo de Borja DO, just to the south of Navarra, where Grenache is the principal grape. I have to disagree with Robert Parker’s high ratings for this wine. Aromatic and piquant on the nose, it followed through to the palate with bright red cherry fruits and a piquancy that made me wonder about acidification, with a slightly sickly nutty end to the finish.  But I have an idea. Add a little sugar and the profile would be perfect for a dessert wine. (After this, I decided not to sample the dessert wine, which however seemed to be a perfectly respectable vintage port.)

I can’t completely exclude the possibility that my palate was out of whack at 35,000 feet, but at all events the common feature of these wines seemed to be excessive striving for intensity. Subtle they ain’t. Even at the crunched price point – I calculate that if every passenger had a glass of wine American would be spending about $2.00 per passenger – there could at least be more variety of choice.

The food was better than the wine but not by a large margin. In all the years I have been on American Airlines, the food has never been up to much. Ranging from barely edible to inedible, sometimes it strikes me as unfit for human consumption (well, consumption by this human, anyway). In the past year or two there’s been some slight improvement. There was always a tendency on American to make the food highly spiced – just what you want at 35,000 feet where you tend to get dehydrated anyway – I assume to disguise the poor quality of the ingredients, but fortunately that phase seems to have passed. Of course, the days of  Krug and caviar on transatlantic flights are long since gone, but surely they could do better than to serve dried out hot meals. I’d settle for cold salads made from better ingredients any time (but I guess the bean counters won’t wear it). In any case, I’ll leave the last word to an American flight attendant, who some years ago said to me, “We’re not fine dining, we’re transportation.”

The Best Terroir is the Best Terroir

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How far can you take terroir? It seems blindingly obvious that some sites produce better wine than others: it is not rocket science to suppose that a sunny spot in the middle of a well drained slope will produce better wine than a cool, shady, damp spot at the bottom.  And I am prepared to buy the fact that slight differences in terroir can reliably produce different nuances in the wine: I was quite convinced of this by several series of pairwise comparisons in Burgundy when I was researching my book on Pinot Noir. Other convincing examples come from comparing, for example, Ernie Loosen’s Rieslings from different vineyards in the Mosel. You can’t mistake the fact that these wines are consistently different, although all made in the same way. But the unresolved question that sticks in my mind is whether different terroirs match different grape varieties or whether the best terroirs are simply the best terroirs. (The middle of that slope would probably produce better plums, apricots, or apples than the bottom.)

I was much struck by this issue when visiting Pinot Noir producers in Germany. All of them, of course, also produce Riesling; in fact, for most of them the Pinot Noir is little more than a sideline. Everywhere in Germany, Riesling is planted in the best terroirs. Those terroirs that aren’t quite good enough for Riesling are planted with other varieties. But where is Pinot Noir planted? Are there spots that are really suitable for Pinot Noir but where Riesling would not succeed? This does not seem to be the case. Pinot Noir is a demanding grape, and it is usually planted in spots that would also have made good Riesling. The best terroirs are the best terroirs, and it’s a matter of choice whether Riesling or Pinot Noir is planted there. And as for the effect of terroir on the nature of the wine, I saw similar effects on both Pinot Noir and Riesling: more minerality, more sense of tension in the wines from the volcanic soils in the north, to rounder, fatter wines from the limestone soils in the south, and softer, lighter wines from sandstone soils in the east.

Is it a general rule that every wine region has a top variety (or varieties) that take the best terroirs? Even on the left bank of Bordeaux, where you hear a lot about the perfect match between Cabernet Sauvignon and the gravel-based soils, it’s really more the case that the gravel-based soils are the best terroirs – so Cabernet Sauvignon is planted there. Merlot is planted in the spots that couldn’t ripen Cabernet Sauvignon. I’ve yet to hear a proprietor extol a vineyard for the perfection of the match of its terroir to Merlot – I suspect the match is more faute de mieux.

Are there regions that grow multiple top varieties where we could test the argument that there are terroirs that are equally good but suited for different varieties. Burgundy seems the obvious case, where the contrast is increased by the fact that Pinot Noir is black but Chardonnay is white. Isn’t it the case that the terroirs of Puligny Montrachet, Chassagne Montrachet, and Meursault, are uniquely suited to Chardonnay whereas those of (say) Nuits St. Georges, Clos Vougeot, and Gevrey Chambertin are uniquely suited to Pinot Noir?

Not exactly. The focus of the appellations to the south of Beaune on white wine is quite recent. Until the second half of the nineteenth century, Puligny Montrachet was mostly planted with Gamay, Chassagne Montrachet was almost exclusively red, and Meursault was divided between red and white wine. The area that is now Corton Charlemagne mostly produced red wine until the twentieth century.  And in the eighteenth century, Clos Vougeot’s white wine was almost as highly regarded as Le Montrachet, as indeed was a white Chambertin. Could we at least argue that the change is due to better understanding of what grape varieties are suited to each terroir. No:  it’s the economy, stupid.

When fashion has swung to and fro on red wine versus white, plantings have followed. Here’s a modern case in point. Beaune’s Clos des Mouches is one of the few vineyards that have both black and white grapes. But there isn’t any pattern to the plantings that follows details of terroirs: in fact, rows of black and white grapevines are more or less interspersed, according to what was needed when replanting last occurred. And as Chardonnay has proved more profitable than Pinot Noir, there’s been a trend towards replanting with Chardonnay.

If the best terroirs are the best terroirs, what determines the best variety for each location? Well, climate is no doubt the most important factor: heat accumulation and hours of sunshine are basically going to determine whether and when the grapes reach ripeness.  Are the best terroirs simply those where historically the grapes have ripened most reliably? On the hill of Corton, where the plantings of Chardonnay for Charlemagne stretch round to the western end of the hill, where Pinot has trouble in ripening, you might argue that the best terroirs are planted with Pinot and second best with Chardonnay, although I have to admit that they make wonderful white Burgundy.

So here is the challenge. Are there examples where two terroirs in the same vicinity give different results with two grape varieties of the same quality (and color if we want this to be a rigorous test)? If one terroir gives better results with one variety and the other terroir gives better results with the other variety, then I will withdraw my conclusion that the best terroir is the best terroir and matching grape varieties is down to climate.

Is Ripeness All in Cabernet Sauvignon

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I’ve been mulling over the issue of ripeness as I begin the research for Claret & Cabs, because the issue seems to be exaggerated with Cabernet Sauvignon, and also with its parent Sauvignon Blanc, relative to other varieties. I think this is because they share the property that varietal character depends on production of pyrazines, in particular IBMP (3-isobutyl-2-methoxy-pyrazine for those technically inclined). Pyrazines form during vegetative growth, essentially during the period before veraison, and then are gradually destroyed by exposure to sunlight. People are very sensitive to them, which would have been an evolutionary advantage, as they are an indication of unripe fruit. IBMP gives Bordeaux its classic notes of bell peppers. This dramatic transition in flavor spectrum is not something I associate with most other varieties. With Pinot Noir, for example, there is certainly a change as the grapes pass from unripe, through ripe, to super ripe, and you see a transition from light, red acidic fruits to darker, riper, black fruits, but you don’t really see a whole flavor component completely disappearing. Is this why the “international style” has made more impact with Cabernet Sauvignon than with other varieties?

As the climate has got warmer, and as criteria for harvesting have moved to greater degrees of ripeness, the concentration of IBMP has fallen in Cabernet Sauvignon, and these days it’s quite rare to detect it in young Bordeaux. Indeed, if you mention the word “herbaceous” to a Bordeaux proprietor today, he is likely to take it as a personal insult. Herbaceousness has never been much of a character in Napa Valley Cabernet, which has always achieved a greater degree of ripeness, and I suspect that most Napa producers would actually regard it as flaw.

But have we lost something here? No one wants to go back to the days of vegetative wines – remember when they couldn’t ripen Cabernet in Monterey and the wines became known as Monterey veggies – but are the wines as interesting when they present simply a monotonic array of fruit flavors. “We need grapes that are cooked, roasted, and green; even this last is necessary; it improves in the cuve by fermenting with the others; it is this that brings liveliness to the wine,” said the Abbé Tainturier at Clos Vougeot almost three hundred years ago; I think he may have had a point. Isn’t there a key point in complexity in which the faintest, barely detectable, touch of herbaceousness brings a crucial element? Does pursuing maximum ripeness lead to optimum complexity?

Something that has been puzzling me lately is the apparent reversion to type of the 1982 Bordeaux vintage. When the wines were first bottled, they were full of lush fruits: you would have been hard put to detect herbaceousness. This is still true of the Chateau Latour, so fruit-bound, and with such with intense aromatics, that it just seems infanticide even to think of drinking of it. It won’t take fifty years to come around like the 1928, but it certainly isn’t ready yet (tasting note in Chateau Latour: Wines for the Ages). On the other hand, the Margaux has reverted to type, and I think the Lafite is about to do so. By reversion, I mean that some herbaceous notes are poking through the fruits, not at all obvious, indeed very subtle against the background of the fruit intensity, but bringing additional complexity. But where did they come from?

Pyrazines come from the grape (mostly from the skin, also from the stems if the grapes weren’t destemmed), and the concentration cannot have changed in the wine since bottling. It must be that as the tannins resolve, and the fruit concentration lightens, you begin to see pyrazines that were there all along but hidden by the fruit intensity. (So the supposed threshold for detection isn’t everything.) I must say that I did not see this coming until I detected faint herbaceous around year 2000 in the 1982 second growths. For me it’s an important contribution to complexity, so I’m puzzling over how to spot the potential in young vintages, which since 1982 have of course become even more intense in overt fruit concentration. Indeed, I wonder if and when they will go the same route as the 1982s.

 Château Margaux 1982

Has now reached a stage of perfection not to mention classicism. Developed black fruit nose has herbaceous overtones turning more distinctly to bell peppers in the glass. There’s a delicious balance of savory black fruits with a herbaceous catch on the finish. There has been a complete reversion to classical type from the lushness of the first decade, with a perfect offset between the black fruits of the palate and the herbaceous overtones of the finish.   96 Drink till 2022

Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1982

Still a dark color, although now garnet rather than purple. Black fruits are just beginning to show some development on the nose, with a hint of menthol, and a touch of austerity cutting the fruits. Typically very smooth on the palate with those layers of flavor typical of Lafite, in fact still quite youthful and fruit-driven. Tannins are now resolving but are very fine grained and ripe, the structure will keep this going for years. Smooth and elegant rather than voluptuous. 93 Drink till 2023

Cabernet Sauvignon: To Blend or Not to Blend

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One of the questions I’ve begun to think about as I start the research for my book on Cabernet Sauvignon is whether the traditional difference between blended wines in Bordeaux but varietal wines in Napa is still justified.

Blending in Bordeaux originated as a protection against failure of any one variety in a climate that was marginal (at least for the varieties being grown). Cabernet Sauvignon did not ripen reliably every year on the left bank, so blending with varieties that ripened more easily (originally with Malbec, later with Merlot) offered two advantages: adding riper flavors to the wine than would be obtained with Cabernet Sauvignon alone; and being able to vary the composition of the blend to respond to failures and successes each year. It also allowed more vineyard area to be cultivated, since Merlot will ripen in spots where Cabernet is not successful. (On the right bank, of course, Cabernet Sauvignon is even harder to ripen and so is generally replaced by Cabernet Franc, but the same principle applies). Even today, with warmer vintages and better viticulture, there is still significant variation in annual usage of each variety; Chateau Palmer, for example, has varied from 40% Cabernet Sauvignon to 68% in the first decade of this century.

The contrasting focus on monovarietal wine in Napa Valley comes partly from the move to varietal labeling that was stimulated by Frank Schoonmaker after the second world war, and which became standard in the New World. (Before then, most wines were labeled by reference to Europe with generic names such as Claret or Burgundy.) Of course, at first the situation in California was not in fact too different from that in Europe, because the rules were so lax that a wine could be labeled with a varietal name so long as it had more than 50% of the variety. Slowly the rules became tightened until reaching today’s minimum limit of 75%. The rationale for making monovarietal Cabernet Sauvignon is that the grapes ripen more reliably in Napa than they did in Bordeaux, the result being that the mid palate is full of fruit, and does not need to be filled in by Merlot or other varieties. Proponents of monovarietals would argue that Cabernet Sauvignon achieves a full flavor spectrum in Napa without needing assistance from other varieties, in fact, I suppose they might take this argument to the logical conclusion of saying that you can only really appreciate the full varietal force of Cabernet Sauvignon if you don’t weaken it with other varieties.

But do these arguments for a fundamental difference in approach still hold up? In the past two decades, climate change has seen temperatures in Bordeaux warm to basically those that Napa showed in the 1970s. Napa has also warmed up a bit, but the gap has narrowed. Climate change has caused somewhat of a change in attitude to winemaking. One of the themes of my book is that prior to 1982, the issue in Bordeaux was trying to get Cabernet to ripeness; the issue in Napa was taming the ripeness to achieve a Bordeaux-like elegancy. Post 1982, a change in consumer attitudes meant that riper, fuller wines were desirable – no more of that touch of herbaceousness that characterized traditional Bordeaux. Coupled with the move to picking on “phenolic ripeness” rather than sugar levels, this led to increasing alcohol levels in the wines. Now the problem everywhere is to control the ripeness. It’s still true that Napa reaches greater ripeness than Bordeaux, typically resulting in an extra per cent of alcohol.

Is it the case that this extra ripeness means that Cabernet Sauvignon is complete in itself or is it true rather that blending even with small amounts of other varieties increases complexity? Should the Bordelais reconsider their view that monovarietal Cabernet Sauvignon is uncouth; or should the Napa producers move to blending in at least a little Merlot to add variety? Before trying to answer this question, it seems to me that the basic facts need to be established. After all, wines labeled as Cabernet Sauvignon in Napa can have up to 25% of other varieties, and even small amounts of secondary varieties can have a significant effect on taste. I remember a blending exercise we did on a Master of Wine trip to Bordeaux where it was surprising what a difference it made to the feeling of completeness in the overall blend when just a tiny percentage of Petit Verdot was included. The question is whether in comparing Bordeaux and Napa we are comparing blended wine with monovarietal wine, or whether we are comparing wines blended with a smaller overall proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon with wines blended with a greater proportion.  So I propose to begin by trying to establish the constitution of wines that are varietal-labeled by determining just how many are really 100% Cabernet and how many have a minor component of another variety. That should be the starting point for an investigation of whether the best wines will be made by blending in Bordeaux but not in Napa. Of course, the answer might depend to some extent on the criteria: mine will be for complexity and elegance in the wine.

In the Médoc, there is a de facto association between quality and Cabernet Sauvignon. The first growths have higher average levels of Cabernet Sauvignon than the second growths, the other grand cru classés are lower, and cru bourgeois are lower yet. (Some of the top wines have more than the 75% Cabernet Sauvignon that would be required for them to be labeled as varietals in Napa!) Whether this is due to the fact that the first growths have better terroir (that is, more reliably capable of ripening Cabernet Sauvignon) or is due to more commercial factors is hard to say, but the fact is that there’s a correlation (albeit rather a loose one) between proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon and position in the marketplace. What does this tell us about Napa, where the majority of wines have more than 75% Cabernet Sauvignon (that is, are varietal-labeled), although they do not necessarily show a price advantage over other Cabernet-based wines. Some of the most expensive cult wines are labeled as Cabernet Sauvignon, others as Proprietary Red. (Of course, whether the varietal-labeled wines are monovarietal remains to be seen.) Cabernet-based wines are certainly at the top of Napa’s hierarchy, but they don’t have to be varietal-labeled.

Which leads me to another thought. The difference between wines of the Médoc and Napa Valley has narrowed since the turning point of 1982. There is a convergence on what is sometimes called the “international” style, focusing on fruits. Partly this is due to Bordeaux closing the temperature gap with Napa, partly it is due to adoption of shared attitudes on viticulture and vinification. (Also notable is the fact that Bordeaux has increasingly moved in the direction of Merlot to obtain those richer flavors: plantings of Cabernet Sauvignon in Bordeaux peaked at 32% in 1990 but today are only 24%, although the Médoc remains around 60%.) It is definitely more difficult to be confident of distinguishing the wines in blind tastings. So to what extent are the differences due to the focus on blending in Bordeaux as opposed to varietal focus in Napa? Would the answer become clear from a comparative tasting of Meritage wines (Bordeaux-like blends from Napa) against Napa or Bordeaux? And of course back to the basic question: what makes the best wine?

Chateau Latour: Wines for the Ages

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Chateau Latour never fails to impress with its longevity. Is it the longest lived wine of Bordeaux? A comparison of two vintages, at three decades and five decades of age, showed two wines aging at a glacial pace, but seeming much younger than their years.

The 1982 and 1964 vintages showed a generally similar aroma and flavor spectrum, in itself an extraordinary feature for two wines separated by two decades. Of course the aromatics were stronger in the younger wine, the color and fruits were more intense, but you could see the same lineage. In a blind tasting you might have taken the young wine for the early 1990s and the older wines for the early 1980s. In a blind tasting I would not have separated them by twenty years.

One of the marks of why Chateau Latour is such a great wine is that no single feature stands out from the harmonious whole. The ripeness and density of the fruits is unmistakable, but in so many New World wines those same features make the wine overpowering, at least when paired with food. Here the 1964 was perfection against a variety of dishes, although I have to admit I found the aromatics on the 1982 just a fraction intense, and found myself muttering “infanticide” from time to time.

The wines were tasted at a splendid dinner at The Modern restaurant in New York, which has recently changed its format from a three course to a four course prix fixe (alas, accompanied by a significant price increase). The wines went well with a mushroom tart (containing mussels and various other components in a brilliant blend that was hard to deconstruct), monkfish in a mushroom sauce accompanied by a green sauce (the killer dish of the evening with an extremely complex texture), and chicken breast in chanterelle sauce (perhaps a mistake on my part to have three dishes in succession based on mushrooms, but  the chanterelles were wonderfully intense). One of the things I like about The Modern is that its well balanced menus do not fall  into the mistake of striving too hard for effect for unusual flavor combinations that clash with wine: everything was perfectly harmonious.

1982 Chateau Latour

This wine is a brooding monster, several years away from coming into a mature balance. Dark in color and on the palate, it hardly seems to have developed. Quite intense aromatics open the nose and follow through to lead the immediate attack on the palate, with blackcurrants dominating. It’s going to take some time for them to calm down, another ten years at least. Underneath is a massive structure with firm, sturdy tannins, well counterbalanced by the concentrated fruits, but everything is in proportion. It’s really more the aromatics than the tannic concentration that characterize the wine as being too young. This does not rival the 1928 in requiring fifty years to come around – it is perfectly drinkable although a bit of a waste at this point – but I suspect that it will begin to revert to type, which is to say to show more savory elements, only in another couple of decades,

1964 Chateau Latour

Still a deep color. The nose has come off its original spectrum of primary fruits, but has not yet developed tertiary aromas. The palate is pure Latour: deep black fruits, some blackcurrants just poking through, dense and rich. You begin to see the layers of complexity starting (!) to develop, but oh so slowly, with the overall impression still fruity rather than tertiary. There is no sign of tiring. Perhaps this does not have the depth of the 1961, but I think it may still have more fruit than the 1966. (Typical for left bank chateaux that picked before the rain in 1964). This particular bottle showed more evident fruit than some others I have had, so not surprisingly there is of course some variation in the extent of development depending on the bottle. But in top condition it should clearly last another couple of decades.

An Experiment with Corks and Screwcaps

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It’s years since I did a scientific experiment but there is one I would like to see done with corks and screwcaps. It’s quite amazing that even with a more than a decade’s experience of bottling wines under screwcaps, the long term effects of the type of closure remain controversial. One issue that I think should be finally resolved is just what effect exposure to oxygen has on long term maturation.

When the same wine is bottled both under cork and under screwcap, it’s evident within a few months that they develop differently. Most of the comparative tastings that I have done have been with white wines, where the usual difference is that wine under screwcap retains brighter fruits with more evident freshness. Preferences are usually split at such tastings between the bottlings: some people prefer the fresh, young style of screwcaps, while others find more complexity in the greater development of the wine under cork.

When I was out in New Zealand and Australia earlier this year, I had several opportunities to compare older red wines that had been bottled under both types of closure. The results were completely consistent.  The wine under screwcap always seemed younger – in a blind tasting you might have said by a couple of years – with more primary fruits, whereas the wine under cork showed some development towards more savory, sometimes even tertiary, aromas and flavors. All of these wines were Pinot Noir (mostly from the first few years of this millennium) but I assume the results would be generally true for all red wines. (The tastings are described in more detail in my recent book, In Search of Pinot Noir). This may not be a completely fair comparison, because the reason for the switch to screwcaps was often the terrible condition of the corks available down under. In fact, when there was the opportunity to taste multiple bottles under cork, they often tasted as different from one another as they did from screwcap, an immediate validation of the decision to switch to screwcaps.

So wines under screwcap clearly develop more slowly: the question in my mind is whether they develop in the same way at a slower pace or whether the overall pattern of  development is different, reflecting a different relative timing of the loss of primary fruits and the appearance of tertiary flavors. Among the wines I tasted, when the wines under cork were in perfect condition, I generally preferred them: but that may be because my taste generally runs to older wines. I would be really interested to repeat the comparison in a few years when the screwcap wines have developed further to see which I prefer then.

Anyway, back to the experiment. The difference between screwcaps and corks is the rate with which oxygen gets into the bottle. It can be close to zero for screwcaps: in fact, there have been problems involving reduction for wines bottled under screwcap, just as damaging in their way as problems with oxidation for wines with faulty corks. Sulfur levels need to be reduced when bottling under screwcap and it may take a while to establish the most appropriate levels for wines intended for any aging. The very best corks (defined operationally as the tightest) have very low oxygenation levels close to those of screwcaps. But the unanswered question is whether you do actually need some level of oxygen exposure; for corks this comes from the supposed “breathing” of the cork; for screwcaps it could come in the future from liners with defined rates for passage of oxygen.

So the experiment I want to do is to determine definitively whether the difference between corks and screwcaps is solely due to oxygen exposure. It is very simple in principle. Bottle a (red) wine under both cork and screwcap. Take bottles with each type of closure and keep one set in normal cellar conditions (cool, dark, humid). Put the other set under identical conditions but in an atmosphere of nitrogen. Then see whether the wines with cork and screwcap closures develop in exactly the same way under nitrogen (which is what you would expect if oxygen is the sole relevant factor). And of course see what differences emerge with and between the wines in the normal cellar. All that’s required is a cellar filled with nitrogen (and I suppose a means of retrieving bottles for periodic testing). Then finally we would know the answer instead of speculating and arguing about it.

Cults and Icons: Cabernet versus Merlot

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I’ve just started the research for a book on Cabernet Sauvignon, which I’m calling Claret & Cabs to emphasize the comparison between the classic style of Bordeaux and the New World style. A large part of the book will focus on Bordeaux and Napa Valley, but I plan to try to identify interesting Cabernet Sauvignons made elsewhere, especially from regions that aren’t well known. I suspect that this will be a more difficult task than it was for Pinot Noir in my last book, and I wonder whether that is because Cabernet is less of a terroir grape than Pinot, so style is more determined by the winemaker, giving power to the big battalions rather than to small producers exploiting unusual terroir niches. Anyway, that’s a topic for a future blog.

Another difference between Pinot and Cabernet is that cult wines are much less a feature of the world of Pinot. Are cult wines concentrated on Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Syrah, rather than Pinot Noir, Nebbiolo, and Sangiovese because the first group can give heavily extracted, powerfully intense wines, whereas the second group is more about delicacy? (Is this a metaphor for the state of the modern world?)

Claret & Cabs will conclude with a chapter on Cults and Icons, and I’ve spent the last few days trying to decide what makes a wine qualify. The First Growths of Bordeaux clearly have iconic status, in fact they’ve had it ever since, indeed before, the 1855 classification. One question I will ask is whether that has always been justified. The other question is which other chateaux should be included – the super-seconds perhaps? One noticeable feature of the list, however it exactly comes out, is likely to be that it consists exclusively of major chateaux.

This is a big contrast with the situation in Napa Valley, where the majority of cult wines are based on the managed scarcity of tiny production runs. It’s not quite so easy to define the cult wines here. In Bordeaux, you can pretty much rely on the relative pricing, which has a structure firmed up by the last couple of centuries of distribution through the restrictive practices of the Place de Bordeaux (essentially the local market of negociants).  Consistent pricing is not so readily available for Napa Valley, but whether you define cult wines by taking a slice at the top price tier, say over $250 per bottle, or in terms of Parker points, a feature in either case is that production is often under 1000 cases, sometimes only 300-500 cases. (The correlation between pricing and critics’ scores, for which I take the Wine Advocate as definitive, is more distant for Bordeaux than it is for Napa, presumably because the 1855 classification and other historical factors have a greater influence, and indeed I shall look at this in a future blog.)

In any case, the fairest comparison for the cult wines of Napa Valley might be more with the limited production garage wines of the right bank of Bordeaux than with the great chateaux of the left bank. But the garage wines are virtually all Merlot, either monovarietal or heavily dominated by it. (Is the lack of garage wines on the left bank due to the fact that the chateaux there are so successful already they feel no need for them?) Since the book is specifically on Cabernet Sauvignon, however, I’m going to have to compare the top wines of the left bank with top wines of Napa. Should I use simple criteria of price or critical scores or should I filter the results by demanding a certain scale of production? At the height of the craze for garage wines, a producer on the right bank who was not participating, said to me, “it’s easy enough to produce high quality wine on a miniscule scale by using all the tricks of viticulture and vinification, but the real issue is to get quality wine when you have tens of hectares to cultivate.” I’m still struggling with the issue of whether wines that are only available on limited mailing lists, indeed where you can see the inheritance of a place on the list being fought over, should be regarded in the same light as wines in general distribution that anyone can buy. Some time in the next few months I have to decide on my criteria for including wines in the final chapter: all suggestions welcome.