Wine And Whiskey, Not So Risky

From Modesto, California - the home of big-batch wines - comes a small-batch, limited release red blend that is aged in charred, white oak whiskey barrels for 60 days. The barrels were home to whiskey for years before having their way with Inferno, and the effect is dramatic. The press blurb says that "Apothic Inferno blends the red and dark fruit flavors of its wine with layers of maple and spice, giving way to a long, clean finish." Winemaker Debbie Juergenson says Inferno has attitude. "It may not have whiskey in it," she says, "but it's wine with a whiskey soul."

The marketing department talks about "defying convention" and a "rebellious attitude." They even remark that the label art has a "fiery style," which is like pointing to an open flame and mouthing the word "hot." The alcohol hits high, at 15.9% abv, but the price isn't bad at all - just $17 retail.

Speaking of marketing, I sent an email to Apothic, asking what grape varieties were used in the wine. It's a question I have asked hundreds of winemakers without being rebuffed. There is, however, a first time for everything. Their reply was cheery, if uninformative. "Due to strict company policy we are unable to provide you with the processes or ingredients used in our products as this is considered proprietary information -- our secret recipe. We hope you understand." Not really, but if you're that afraid that some other company will steal your idea of using red wine grapes to make a red wine, I suppose it's alright.

Apothic Inferno 2014 appears as a dark ruby vision in the glass and waves at the beholder with a nose born in whiskey and campfire smoke. The palate is also soaked in that boozy barrel, with the flavor of liquor coming through without the heat. The plum and raspberry notes have to fight for notice, and they barely get a signal through, although it does come, with an added hint of rosemary. Tannins are quite firm and will serve a ribeye steak quite well, especially one that's fresh off the grill.

As a wine, I'd have to say the wood has far too much influence, but that is by design. As a beverage, it's a wild delight, bringing together the best aspects of table wine, port and liquor.


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Temecula Wine Harvest To Mechanize

Wine Your Own Beeswax

The wines of Bonny Doon Vineyards are all about complexity. They are all about savory. Sometimes, they’re all about beeswax.

The 2013 Le Cigare Blanc is composed of 57% Grenache Blanc grapes, 27% Roussanne and 16% Picpoul Blanc. Those Rhônish varieties are grown with organic care in the Beeswax Vineyard of Monterey County's Arroyo Seco appellation. Three varieties, a single vineyard.

Bonny Doon chief Randall Grahm says the '13 vintage of the pale analog of his amazing Le Cigare Volant is richer than the "lean, taut '11" but has the hallmark complexity we've come to expect in his wines. It rides in at 14.5% abv and retails for $28. Grahm made 1,757 cases

The wine is a pale, greenish-gold in the glass. It smells, notably, of beeswax - not surprising given that the grapes were grown in the namesake vineyard. A light lanolin creeps over with a bit of yellow melon and a chalk minerality. The nose is elegant, not forceful. On the palate, its savory aspect is apparent, with waxy and nutty flavors presiding over the citrus and minerals. The mouthfeel is full and the acidity is just enough. Year after year, it’s one of the best white wines I taste.

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Great Syrah, Carignan Blend From Roussillon

I spoke recently with Eric Aracil, the representative for the Roussillon Wine Council, the promotion arm for the French wine region at the country’s southern border with Spain. You can read about my conversation with him here.

Organically farmed in the Côtes du Roussillon Villages region in the south of France, the 2012 Domaine Seguela Cuvée Jean Julien comes from the northern part of Roussillon.  It  is made from a 65% share of Syrah grapes, 30% Carignan and a 5% splash of Grenache. It registers its alcohol content at 13.8% abv and sells for about $20.

Jean-Pierre and Trinidad Seguela run the place with an eye toward quality. They organically grow limited yield crops with high concentration and continue that care into the cellar.

The wine is inky dark, with no light passing through the glass. A nose showing smoke, black olives and leather is as inviting as it sounds. The palate is savory and dark. Cassis and blackberries are nearly buried, gratefully, by those olives, some licorice and a hint of molasses. Tannins are quite firm and eagerly await a plate of charcuterie or a lamb stew.

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Nielsen Data And Wine

Carmel Valley Chardonnay

Jarman Wines are made by the fine folks at Holman Ranch, in California's Carmel Valley. The land has changed hands many times since it was carved out of the "Crown of Spain" as a mission grant. Though many have claimed it through the years, Holman Ranch is now the property of Thomas and Jarman Lowder, who purchased it in 2006. "Recently retired," the website explains, "Thomas and Jarman decided to fulfill a lifelong dream to make estate grown wine and olive oil." So much for the retirement rocking chair.

This Carmel Valley wine is Monterey County born and bred, made from two different Chardonnay clones, 95 and 76. It is aged in new French oak barrels for five months, and the touch of wood is just about perfect. The alcohol hits a lofty 14.2% abv. Well, it would be lofty in Burgundy. In California, it's about normal. The organic and certified sustainable grapes are harvested and sorted by hand, and only seven barrels were made. It runs $45 at retail.

The wine is a pretty golden color and smells very much like citrus and earthy minerals with a faint hint of smoke thrown in. It's a titillating nose for a Chardonnay. The palate holds up the promise of the aromas. There is a strong sense of minerals up front, which gives way momentarily to a butterscotch flavor. That flavor in turn hands off to lemon-lime and notes of fresh stream water that has run over sandstone rocks to get to you. The oak make itself known, but in a very polite way. Fresh, zippy acidity feels perfect for a picnic or the Thanksgiving table.


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Restaurant Wine Tricks

SoCal Brew Puts Out The Fire

When you need to put out the fire, call a fireman.  The Southern California brewery created by firefighters has a refreshing beverage for sale in 16-ounce cans.  After putting out a brush fire, they reportedly hit upon the idea to have a beer - go figure - and one thing led to another. Anaheim’s Fireman’s Brew makes this India Pale Ale at 6.5% abv. It will douse your thirst as well as it did theirs.

Hops are what makes an IPA the crisp and breezy drink that it is. The little flowers for this beer are Cascade, Columbus, Chinook and Galena varieties. Cascade brings aromas, Columbus and Galena hops are for bittering while Chinook offers spice and pine notes.

The nose on this Fireman’s Brew IPA is like a pine forest, with lovely citrus aromas that make summer seem sooo close. Lemon comes in on the palate, as well as a floral sensibility and a hint of allspice. It's a fairly complex beer. It's a very refreshing beer. It puts out the fire.


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From Big Waves To Big Wine

ZIOBAFFA is an Italian wine, and its creators - Jason Baffa and Chris Del Moro - have brought their passion for filmmaking and surfing to wine. Their search for world-class waves in the Mediterranean Sea landed them in Tuscany, where the Castellani family took them in and made a vintage which was captured on film.

Baffa is an award-winning filmmaker who chronicled his love of surfing in the film, "Bella Vita," developed with his friend Del Moro. The pair shared plenty of good food and beverage while getting those gnarly waves on celluloid. It was a natural - organic, in fact - transition to ZIOBAFFA (in Italian, Uncle Baffa.)

The press blurb says "ZIOBAFFA is bottled and labeled with eco-friendly material, crafted with a biodynamic focus and organically produced grapes, with a focus on sustainable, zero waste production and environmentally friendly bottling, including the innovative Helix reuseable cork closure."

The unusual cork, which looks like a cross between a sparkling wine cork and a liqueur stopper, requires no mechanical assistance for opening. You can access the wine barehanded, even though it is worth some trouble.

The Ziobaffa Toscana is made from grapes organically grown in the Poggio al Casone vineyard, 80% Sangiovese and 20% Syrah. Visually this wine is a black hole - no light gets through at all. Aromas of black berries, plums and currants are soaked in a savory setting of cigars and spice. The palate is fresh and lively, with enough tannins for anything Bolognaise, for sure. You might even grill a steak for it. Dark fruit flavors are laced with a leathery licorice layer that does not disappoint.

I paired it with an amazing cheese by Italian cheesemaker Beppino Occelli, Occelli al Barolo.  After nine months of aging, the wheel is coated with a Barolo grape must, then soaked for two months with another wine, Langa Marc. The Sangiovese fits nicely with the Nebbiolo influence of the cheese. It also plays very well with Occelli’s Testun al Foglie di Castagno, which is wrapped in chestnut leaves.


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Sparkling Red Wine

San Diego Beer - Sculpin IPA

Sometimes those 22-ounce bottles of beer come in pretty handy. If you're a beer lover, and you're only having one beer, this is a good one to have. Either this or a 40. It's a good size for anyone who is the recipient of stares that say without speaking, "You’re having another one?" Well, if you can only have one without "getting into it," this is certainly a good choice.


Ballast Point Brewing and Spirits is one of the better reasons to go to San Diego, Temecula or Long Beach.  They have a lot of tasting rooms open in Southern California, but it all started in the place Angelenos like to think of as "Iowa by the sea." The thinking there is that Midwesterners, when listing places where they'd like to escape a bitter winter, have only place on the list. Fortunately for them, San Diegans make a lot of good beer.

This zippy Sculpin India Pale Ale carries a chestnut golden color and a slight head of fine white froth, which clings to the glass. The nose is loaded with fresh pine needles and lemon zest, with a hint of grapefruit running behind. The palate is creamy and very hoppy with a floral trace on the more beery notes. The Sculpin is a perfect example of why I like IPA enough that I'll often go without a beer if one is not available. And that's a big sacrifice for a beer lover to make.

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College Wine

Roussillon Wine: Grenache Blanc, Gris

Le Clos de Paulilles Collioure is in the south of the southernmost region in France. It's so far south, it's almost Spain. In fact, it once was Spain. Besides being a valuable military point in the old "stormin' the castle" days, it also has some mighty nice vineyards in the hills. Some of them produce wine for the Banyuls dessert wines you may have enjoyed.

Collioure is also famous for its anchovies. Mark Kurlansky says they are the best in the word in his book, "Salt."

This white wine is made using 70% Grenache Blanc grapes and 30% Grey Grenache. Roussillon's Eric Aracil notes that the grey variety is the "used to produce white, dry rosé wine or Vin Doux Naturel (fortified sweet wine)." He says it "produces powerful, rounded, elegant, voluptuous wines with hints of aniseed and minerals."

The vineyard terraces of the clos go right down to the Mediterranean, picking up notes of the sea and salt spray. The 14% abv content is quite manageable, although a little higher than usually found in France.

This wine looks golden in a carafe, but pours up yellow-gold in the glass, very close to a faint, faint rosé. Take a sniff and it’s mineral time. Wet rocks and lemon peel, lime and even some tangerine appear on the nose. The sip brings all that into focus with a hint of grapefruit and pineapple thrown in. Acidity is top-notch, but not abrasive. The finish leaves me wishing for a beautiful spring day.

Have it with trout almondine, or just the almonds. I think I would like it with a Caesar salad, extra anchovies.


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Sweet Roussillon Wine

Rivesaltes is the AOC designation for naturally sweet, fortified wines in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in the south of France.

The Roussillon region allows nearly two dozen grape varieties to be used in winemaking. The Cazes vineyards produce such grape varieties as Muscat of Alexandria, Muscat Petit Grain, Macabeu, Vermentino, Grenache Blanc, Syrah, Grenache Noir, Mourvèdre, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Tannat, Viognier and Carignan.

The Cazes vineyards are biodynamically free of pesticides and insecticides, and they claim to act upon "the true expression of the soil and the plant in their natural environment." They make Vins de pays, Côtes du Roussillon, Côtes du Roussillon Villages, Rivesaltes and Muscat de Rivesaltes wines at the Cazes facility.

The 1997 Ambré is described as a natural sweet wine, of vintage 1997.  100% Grenache Blanc juice is aged in oaken vats for 15 years, and is fortified to 16% abv.

This wine is beautifully brown - Cazes calls it amber, of course - and it looks even darker in color than a Newcastle. The nose is a dessert unto itself. Baked raisins, brown sugar and molasses are right up front, and the top of the glass throws a little smoke our way. The palate is as rich as we might expect after getting a whiff of the aromas. It is fairly viscous and has medium-high acidity, with a sherry-esque flavor that highlights the raisins. A salty note sails right into the finish, which is just as much a delight as the nose and the palate.

Pair it with a thick slice of cinnamon-raisin bread for either a lush dessert or a holiday breakfast.


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Chilling Wine

Reveling In Roussillon

Eric Aracil is the representative for the Roussillon Wine Council, the promotion arm for the French wine region at the southern tip of the country, at the border with Spain.

Roussillon Wines promotes themselves as "The Other French Vintage Wine," although I think  the region needn’t concede so much to the better known areas like Bordeaux and Burgundy. For years I have sought out wines from the south of France as being more in my own personal wheelhouse, and for better value.

I spoke with Aracil recently, and he gave me some insight into the region as a whole, and into several samples that had been provided to me for the purpose.

Roussillon is usually tossed into the collective region of  Languedoc-Roussillon-Midi-Pyrénées, but it occupies the southernmost point in that conglomeration.

Aracil told me that terroir diversity is Roussillon’s calling card. The wide variety of terroirs allow for many different grapes to be used, 23 in all, including four kinds of Grenache. The region produces about 95% still wine.

As you might expect, Roussillon winemakers are working from a heritage that stretches back centuries - 28 centuries, in fact. This, added with the relative "grape freedom" of the area, means that Roussillon’s winemakers have one of the most wide-open fields for exploration and experimentation in France.

Aracil likes to point to the growing of the grapes in Roussillon as the jumping-off point for great bottles of wine. The vines, he says, send their roots down ten meters or more to gather in the nutrients offered by the subsoil and gain protection from the dry climate. He says the vines tend to have a low yield, which is always a good news/bad news joke for winegrowers. The good news is the aromas and flavors are more concentrated in a low yield. The bad news is you have fewer of those remarkable grapes to sell.

Each vineyard, Aracil says, has its own set of microclimates. The contour of the land gives different exposures to the sun, and altitudes range from the valley floor to the mountains, from the seaside to inland. This offers a wide array of acidity levels and ripeness.  Generally, he says, Roussillon winemakers like to avoid overripeness, over extraction and overoaking.

In coming articles, we will explore some specific wines from the region.


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Sparkling Albarino

Leisurely Lambusco

From the Banfi family of wines, this northern Italian red is, as the name Rosso Dolce suggests, on the sweet side. Not sweet as in dessert, but sweet as opposed to dry.

Bell'agio Rosso Dolce is made by blending two grapes of Emilia-Romagna, Lambrusco Grasparossa and Lambrusco Salamino. The vineyards are in the province of Reggio Emilia, located between the Po River and the hills of the Apennine mountains.

The wine is fermented in stainless steel and given a second fermentation, which imparts a bit of frothy fizz to the wine. Alcohol is incredibly restrained at just 8% abv. It sells for about 10 bucks, less in some places.

This is a very purple wine. It looks purple, it smells purple and it tastes purple. The nose is grapy and earthy, with not a whole lot of complexity. The palate is also rather simple, - pleasant, though, with gentle tannins. It's like a wine with training wheels, something to put in your glass until you're ready for the hard stuff.

That shouldn't be taken to mean the wine is not worthy. It is, quite, in fact. Its simplicity is its grace. It's a classic bistro wine, the stuff to drink when the person across the table is of greater interest that the bottle on the table.

You can pair this wine with very spicy foods, as the tannins and acidity are rather tame. It goes well with pasta, burgers, cheese or even pastries.

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Pushing The Syrah Envelope

Winemaker Randall Grahm notes on the Le Pousseur label that Syrah's aroma will stay with you a long time. "One will wander the world till the end of one’s days," he writes, "its sublime, haunting fragrance gradually displacing all thoughts and memories, including the knowledge of one's own name." I don’t see myself getting quite that lost in it, but I will admit to a slightly stunned and displaced look on my face as I sniffed Grahm’s Central Coast Zahir-apparent.

That is, a little more stunned and displaced than I usually look.

What does "Le Pousseur" mean, en Francais? Grahm writes a bit about the feminine qualities of Syrah, the grape's elegance. However, "le" is a masculine article. When I looked it up, a translating website said "Le Pousseur" means, "the pusher." Connecting only with the Steppenwolf song, I delved deeper. "Tugboat?" "Bulldozer?" "Booster rocket?" That's some fairly masculine imagery right there.

As far as the wine goes, it's well-mannered, to be sure, but it does not strike me as elegant. In fact, Le Pousseur  uses hands of steel to wield Grahm’s trademark savoriness for the purpose of blunt force trauma. Which is a good thing.

The grapes for the 2013 Le Pousseur came from three cool-climate Central Coast vineyards: 63% from Santa Maria's Bien Nacido Vineyard, 34% from San Luis Obispo County's Alamo Creek Vineyard and 3% from Ventana Vineyard in the Arroyo Seco AVA. These vineyards each bring an earthy element of their terroir to the wine, a rich, mineral-laden display that makes wine savory. And, for my money, makes wine great.

The wine's notes explain that Grahm likens this Syrah to a northern Rhône offering, specifically one from the Saint-Joseph region. Rhône ambassador Christophe Tassan calls the wines of Saint-Joseph "gutsy, rugged, demanding by nature." In this regard, the comparison is on the money. A "pushy" wine? Maybe so. It certainly has plenty to push. Le Pousseur hits a modest 13.5% abv and sells for $26

The wine is dark, as in black. It's savory on the nose. There is dark fruit, yes - plums, blackberries, etc. But there are black olives and dirt and rocks and licorice and spices all competing for attention. The palate brings a smooth mouthful of minerals and acidity to the taste buds. It's a deep and moody wine that "will not be ignored" and calls for similar food to be paired with it. Lamb chops are recommended, and I'll go with that.


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