Rodney Strong is turning a page

I’ve been drinking Rodney Strong wines for decades and until recently it seemed to have fallen into a pattern of making generic wine for the masses. In recent years, however, its emphasis on its premium reds has shown that its proprietor Rick Klein is capable of producing top-shelf wines.

Now comes Justin Seidenfeld who Klein has given a lot of liberty as director of winemaking. Seidenfeld has control of both vineyards and winemaking in this family-owned operation. In a recent meeting with him, he said 2019 would be an important year of innovation.

Justin Seidenfeld, director of winemaking

Seidenfeld knows the science of winemaking and his unabridged explanations can make the head swim, but I could at least understand that he is precise in making balanced, consistent and technically correct wines.

For instance, while most growers will focus on yield per vineyard, he has shifted to yield per vine. Vigor and ripening can vary from vine to vine. He maps each one so that pickers can harvest them at perfect ripeness. This brings consistency and quality to the grapes.

Similarly, the staves in an oak barrel are inconsistent because of the vagaries of a tree. However, Seidenfeld spends inordinate amount of time matching up the staves to bring consistency to the aging and fermentation process.

He has introduced a delicious rose and red blend to the broad portfolio as a means to grow production. And, Kleiin has created a new toy for him: a seperate label called Rowen. Putting a new name on the label allows for it to succeed without the influence of Rodney Strong’s public image. It’s a delicious Bordeaux blend with deceiving tannins.

My favorite is still the big Alexander’s Crown cabernet sauvignon, but the chardonnay is more appealing than ever because of its bu rgundian-like profile.

Strange suggestions on saving bad wine

I do a lot of public wine tastings and invariably a question comes up that starts with, “Is it true….?” Rarely, it is. Here are some of those questions:

1. Will a raisin save a sparkling wine that has gone flat? This has been an idea floating around the internet for some time. Respected journals and scientists have debunked it. A raisin, because of its crinkly nature, will excite what carbon dioxide is left in sparkling wine. But it won’t manufacture new bubbles. I experimented with this and found that a sparkling wine opened longer than 40 minutes will get no reaction from the raisin. Once flat, always flat.

2. Will a penny dropped in a corked wine eliminated the foul taint? I was in a restaurant when a salesman tried this to save a precious French wine he had poured to wine writers. Not only did the attempt fail, but it was pretty disgusting to consider drinking anything fouled by a dirty penny. There has been evidence that plastic wrap bunched in wine will remove cork taint successfully — but unfortunately acidity and flavors are also removed.

3. Will putting red wine in a blender accelerate the breathing process? A modernist chef recently promoted this and there is some validity to the idea. Setting the blender to high for 30 seconds will certainly reduce the time a wine would spend in a decanter to achieve the same result. But do you really want spin wine in a vessel used last night for a tomato sauce? Even if it was cleaned, is there soap residue left?

   Some times there are no cures or short cuts to enjoying a good wine.

Loire's forgotten red wines

The other night I joined some friends at a tasting of Loire wines. The white wines from this region — sparkling wine, chenin blanc, sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, for example — are delightful but not the most known from France. However forgotten the white wines, the red wines are even more ignored. How unfortunate.

Loire’s 630-mile region is host to a number of grape varieties both commonly known and obscure. Like all of France, the grape varieties aren’t evident on the label. Instead, the appellations or villages are highlighted. Thus, you may not known that cabernet franc is the pride of Chinon or that Sancerre is all about sauvignon blanc.

The red wines often fail to impress newbies because they don’t seem to have a lot of body or complexity. However, I’ve found that these wines are deceiving and generally get out of their adolescent stage in a few years. Their high acidity masks the fine tannins and subtle flavors. The Domaine de Reuilly Denis Jamain Pinot Noir I tasted had a lot of finesse and could be mistaken for a top-drawer Oregon pinot noir. But who thinks of Loire for its pinot noir?

I didn’t think I’d find a pinot noir from Loire that I liked, but even more impressive was the 2016 Domaine de la Chanteleuserie Bourgueil “Cuvee Alouettes.” Bourgueil is one of the most famous places in the Loire for cabernet franc, a grape variety relegated to blends in other parts of the world. While other Loire producers blend cabernet sauvignon in their wines, this producer relies exclusively on cabernet franc. No wonder — why dilute something so pure?

The wine, like most other from this region, is loaded with fresh fruit reminiscent of bing cherries and spice. The only reason I would think this wine has longevity is that I’ve enjoyed older cabernet francs from the Loire.

I’m headed to the store to sock away a few of these red wines.

Wine consumption highest in Idaho. Really?

I don’t have anything against Idaho, known to most of us as a potato, but I find it hard to believe that its residents consume more wine per capita than any other state.

The National Institute of Health checks wine sales every year and finds that the Gem State continues to lead the pack in per capita consumption, followed by Washington, D.C., New Hampshire, New Mexico and Vermont. Now, there aren’t a lot of people in Idaho so those who are stuck there drink a lot. Or so it seems.

Californians drink the most wine — but there are a lot of people in California so their per capita consumption isn’t as impressive.

Even wine sales personnel in Idaho have a hard time believing this result. Some theorize that the state’s proximity to California and strong shipping sales from that state have a lot to do with Idaho’s top ranking. I suggest it may be their isolation. Maybe its massive depression over being known as a potato. But now they have bragging rights the rest of us don’t have.

Go, Idaho.

A new TV program on wine

Amazon Prime launched a new series on January 4 that is focused on wine — but not really. Called “It Starts with Wine,” the documentary series begins with a winery in Uruguay. The second one is also in South America.

The producers don’t presume that the series will focus exclusively one wine — it’s more about the wine experience, the food and the people. Even knowing that, I was still disappointed.

The photography is outstanding, but I found little substance beyond the glossy exterior. The third part on the biodynamic efforts of Bonterra left me clueless about what makes them so special. And Bonterra, a pioneer in organic farming, is special. But I learned more about the personal lives of the viticulturalist and winemaker than I did about what makes a vineyard biodynamic.

So, if you are looking for entertainment, perhaps you’ll enjoy this series more than me. But if you are looking for higher learning of the wine business, turn the channel.

English fizz a nice surprise

Champagne has been loathe to dispel the myth that they invented sparkling wine. I can’t blame them. They have commanded the sparkling wine industry for centuries and hold on to their rightful claim that only they can call champagne “champagne.”

But history will show that methode champenois, the process by which today’s champagne is made, was an invention of English physician Christopher Merret. He was the first to add sugar to still wine to produce a secondary fermentation.

But a century earlier, Dom Perignon was fumbling to tame the bubbles in what he called “the devil’s wine.” His problem was that fermentation would stop as temperatures in northern France dropped, only to resume in the spring when temperatures climbed. The result was carbon dioxide (bubbles) which once trap would cause a bottle to burst. Champagne started as an accident; for the Brits sparkling wine was intentional.

However apologetic the good monk, the Brits loved the bubbles in the 17th century and invented a stronger glass bottle. Voila, champagne lived on.

With that history refresher, I was eager to sample two sparkling wines made in England. With more than 400 wineries in southeast England, the Brits have been dabbling in winemaking for some time. However, their success with sparkling wine didn’t appear until global warming made its growing conditions more hospitable.

The two sparking wines — “Ridgeview Bloomsbury and Ridgeview Cavendish — were quite good. They both use the same primary grapes used in Champagne — chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier. That makes their product closer to champagne than prosecco (glera) and cava.(xarello and more).

I liked the elegance and depth of the Bloomsbury brut, which was different from the Henriot Brut I tasted as well. But it held its own.

So did its price. The Henriot seemed like a deal at $45 compared to the $55 prices for each English sparkling wine. I have to wonder why anyone would choose and English sparkling wine when for less money he could get French champagne.

However, the English are proud to drink locally made sparkling wine. In fact, sales of champagne have plummeted in England due in part to the local competition as well as the popularity of prosecco and Brexit.

If you are English, be proud of these wines. Surely Dr. Merret would.

For more champagne recommendations, see “My Column.”

A Cotes du Rhone to buy now

In my 35 years of wine writing I have never lost faith in Cotes du Rhone. Vastly underrated for its power and easily dismissed as a poor cousin of Chateauneuf du Pape, this AOC blend often over-performs.

I was reminded of this last night when I eagerly opened a bottle of 2016 Chateau de Saint-Cosme “Les Deux Albion” Cotes du Rhone. It was a stunner for $22 — worthy of buying more for my cellar. I’ve tasted gigondas from this Rhone Valley property and have found the producer to be reliable across the board. But this simple red blend rocked my senses.

The wine is a class blend of syrah (50 percent), grenache, carignan, mouvedre and clairette from three Cotes-du-Rhone-Villages communes. The whole clusters are co-fermented with indigenous yeasts and vinified in conical wooden vats and concrete tanks for 18 months.

The result is a wine with dark color, dense structure, complexity and huge garrigue and floral aromas. On the palate the flavors range from black cherries to plums with some nice spice tossed in. It can easily age for 3 years or more, which makes it a great wine to put away for the short-term.

Knudsen: from farmer to producer

When you think of winemaking pioneers in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, a handful of names come to mind: David Lett, Dick Erath and Dick Ponzi, all of whom were growing grapes and making wine by the early 1980s. However, a name that escapes more memories is Cal Knudsen, a Weyerhaeuser executivbe who became Oregon’s largest vineyard owner in 1975 when he expanded his 30-acre block in Dundee Hills to 60 acres.

Knudsen never made wine solely under his name, but he partnered with Dick Erath to form Knudsen-Erath Winery. When that partnership ended in 1987, he sold his wines to Argyle for its well-respected sparkling wine program.

Knudsen died in 2009 and his four children — none involved in the wine business — decided to continue the family legacy and launched Knudsen Vineyards in 2012, first with a pinot noir and then with a chardonnay. Because they had established lives and businesses well outside the wine world, the family turned to its long-time partner — Argyle — to help.

Page Knudsen Cowles, managing partner

I recently had dinner with Page Knudsen Cowles, managing partner of Knudsen Vineyards, who said it was important to the family to keep their father’s legacy going for future generations. Knudsen continues to sell grapes to Argyle and buys back about 500 tons for its own wine. Argyle’s winemaker Nate Klosterman is making the wine.

The Knudsens couldn’t have made a better business decision. They can ease into the unfamiliar business of making wine with professionals at the helm. The two pinot noirs and one chardonnay I tasted were well made — good balance and pure expression of the Dundee Hills fruit character.

I really like the 2016 burgundian-like chardonnay because it had just a kiss of oak and an austere but intense profile. The estate pinot noir blended into the Willamette pack at $55; the reserve showed more distinction at $70 but the wines tasted like a product still being developed. Given the quality of the vineyards, I would like to see Knudsen make a single-vineyard pinot noir.

Argle makes a pinot noir made entirely from Knudsen grapes. Most consumers won’t know that, but I wonder if winemaker Klosterman is making the same pinot noir for both labels — or something different for Argyle.

These wines are on the right track, but clearly the Knudsen’s have an uphill climb in a competitive market. The wines are distributed in only a handful of states (including my state of Florida) and the burden has fallen to Page to hand-sell the wines city to city. She lives in Minnesota.

She agrees that a tasting room will make her job much easier, especially if that can drive direct-to-consumer sales. Oregon has seen tremendous growth in this sector.

By the way, Ste. Michelle Estates bought out Erath several years ago, but Dick Erath was allowed to live in his original home. That lease runs out this year and Knudsen doesn’t plan to renew it. That sounds like a good location for a tasting room!

How about a glass of Tide?

The tide seems to be turning. Tide, the producers of laundry detergent, abandoned those cute little pods when 8 people died after ingesting them — they looked too much like candy and in some cases sane people were dared into eating them. Now, Tide has developed an eco-friendly box with a handy spout that looks too much like boxed wine.

Social media comments wonder if people won’t mistake the laundry detergent for their box of Franzia.

Really?

First, you’ve got a bigger problem if your kids are confusing boxed wine with laundry detergent. Second, I don’t see how anyone with half a brain could confuse this box with wine. It’s orange and the label is a jug of Tide. If that doesn’t set you straight, the first pour of this thick, colored liquid should tell you it isn’t wine in your glass.

You just can’t fix stupid.

With blends, only red seems to work

I recently did a wine tasting for a small group of eager wine enthusiasts. The subject was blends — a segment of the wine industry that is growing so fast it’s just behind chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon. In fact, of the wines introduced in the last year, 40 percent of them were blends.

Strangely to me at least is that no one is making a decent white blend. The two I offered to the tasters — Kitchen Sink and Apothic White — were awful. Nearly everyone — including me — dumped them. There seemed to be no consideration given to what each grape variety contributed to the wine. Awkward and overly acidic come to mind.

On the other hand, the three red blends I poured were equally delicious. Each blended different grapes — one was a California blend of mostly zinfandel and syrah; one was a South African blend of Bordeaux grape varieties; the other was a Washington state blend of 14 grapes. Each showed how well-paired grapes can produced a delicious wine with broad flavors.

I’ll be writing a column about red blends in the near future. For now, there are the three wines everyone liked:

• No Curfew Red Wine 2016 ($15). This is a very delicious and balanced blend of zinfandel, syrah, petite sirah, cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot. Raspberry notes enveloped in a round mouthfeel with oak-infused vanilla and chocolate flavors. This is an invention of Amici, a producer known for its great values. 

• Beyond Ordinary Cabernet Blend 2016 ($15).  We didn’t expect much from this South African blend, but we’re we ever surprised. This blend uses all five Bordeaux grape varieties and offers French appeal with black currant and dark fruit flavors, soft tannins and hints of pepper and leather. 

• Apex Red Blend “The Catalyst” 2016 ($17). There are 14 grape varieties in this complex and well-priced blend from Washington state. Syrah dominates the blend, though, and provides effuse red berry flavors. Nice dose of fine tannins gives it body for a foil to grilled steaks. 

Bellacosa: finally a true wine to enjoy

I’m so tired of false wines. By that I mean those sappy popsicles that are loaded with sweet fruit and blended with no consideration for what makes sense. Oh, wait, there is a wine called Liquid Popsicle. And there are wines called Kitchen Sink to denote that everything but is a part of the blend, and Conundrum because the variety of grapes make it impossible to define.

Daniel Cohn

But then comes along Bellacosa, a cabernet sauvignon that is appreciably honest.. The wine is balanced and the best $25 cabernet sauvignon on the market today. I am not exaggerating.

The genius behind this three-year-old brand is Dan Cohn, the son of Bruce Cohn whose cabernet sauvignons — B.R. Cohn — were legendary. When Bruce sold the business in 2015, Dan launched Bellacosa with the matra that his wine “had to look like a $100 bottle, it had to brink like a $50 bottle and it had to sell at $25.”

He traveled state to state for 308 days a year while married with child, staying in cheap hotels and putting his wines in the mouths of restaurant beverage managers, retailers and consumers — shoe-leather marketing. When I met up with him for breakfast, he pounded down two espressos — he would have four more before lunch. He is the Energizer Bunny of the wine world.

“I try to keep it under 20 espressos a day,” he quipped.

His first vintage of 25,000 cases sold out in 10 months. Wine Business named him one of the top 10 Wine Brands of 2016. Critics are raving about his wines.

Each restaurant he visits, he challenge doubters to blind taste his $25 Bellacosa alongside the best cabs on their wine lists. In fine restaurants, that can include Hall, Frank Family Vineyards and other prestigious brands that sell for considerably more. He calls this the “Bellacosa Bet” and if he wins the restaurant agrees to pour his wine by the glass. He hasn’t lost yet.

He makes only cabernet sauvignon from California’s north coast vineyards because that’s the grape variety he managed while working for his father. Last year he formed a joint venture with Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits.

What I found so refreshing in Bellacosa is that it didn’t follow the herd of most start-ups that are parlaying the consumer’s coco-cola palate for instant success from cheap blends loaded with sugar and plastered with some catchy name.

You’re a fool if you don’t try this wine.

Phinney sells another one

Wine genius David Phinney seems to have a pretty good deal going. He invents a label, makes it a marketing phenom, then sells it for a princely sum to a wine conglomerate.

Phinney’s most recent deal was to sell his Locations series to E&J Gallo. It was only a few years ago that Phinney was inspired to blend wines across regions and label them after the country’s designation. Resembling a bumper sticker, “F” was for France, “E” for Spain, “AZ” for Arizona, etc. There was no regard for boundaries in deciding which varieties to use in his blends. However quixotic, the wines were tasty — and reasonably priced at $20 a bottle. It was a formula that abandoned traditions that would be Phinney’s ticket to success.

The sales price was not disclosed.

Phinney already had a friendly business relationship with Gallo, having sold his Orin Swift wines to them just two years ago. Constellation now has the Prisoner brand.

Phinney was able to launch new labels without owning any vineyards or winemaking facilities. Think about that. He sells a label. Presumably, he stays aboard and makes the wine, but I suspect it is in name only.

Phinney’s latest wine is 8 Years in the Desert made under the Orin Swift label. It is a zinfandel blend that sells for $45 a bottle.

Wine drinkers are a happy lot

According to a study by TABS, 66 percent of adults in the U.S. consume beverage alcohol and among them 45 percent buy wine at least three times a year

The profile of those who enjoy wine is not surprising: 55 percent earn more than $125,000 and most popular are those aged 21-29 and 30-39, and probably hail from the Northeast.

Bonterra has its prestige

Bonterra has been recognized as a pioneer in organic farming, so much so that it has added "Organic" to to its name. One reason, it seems to me, is that it wants to distinguish its well-known organic wines from a relatively new series of prestigious cuvees. "Bonterra" is noticeably absent from the label.

Meant to emphasize the biodiversity in the vineyards, these wines have purity of fruit, richness, body and drinkability.

I loved 2013 The Butler ($50), a blend of 80 percent syrah, 8 percent mourvedre, 6 percent grenache and 6 percent zinfandel. Generous aromas and flavors with rich mouthfeel and length.

The other wines in this series includes the 2014 The McNab ($50), a blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and old vine petit sirah, and the 2015 The Roost, a Burgundian-style chardonnay. 

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Gaja scores again with a blend

I remember meeting Angelo Gaja in Washington, D.C., more than 20 years ago. At the time he was just starting to gain notoriety for blending grape varieties and introducing Piedmont to controversial winemaking techniques. He declassified his wines and risked it all.

He was widely criticized by fellow winemakers, but eventually won out. He reduced the use of oak and added malolactic fermentation. His wines today sell for a lot of money -- his famous barbarescos can cost more than $300.

Although 78 years old today, he insists he hasn't retired even though his two daughters are operating the family business.

I was delighted to recently find Gaja Sito Moresco Langhe ($50), a red blend that includes nebbolio, merlot and cabernet sauvignon. Unlike his barolos and barbarescos, this blend is ore approachable -- a niche the family must have wanted to accommodate fans who don't want to wait decades for their Gaja wines to mature.

Sito Moresco is named after a family who farmed this 25-acre estate in Barbaresco before it was purchased by Gaja Winery.

This is a delicious wine that continues the family's tradition of blending Bordeaux grape varieties with indigenous grapes.

Phinney at it again

David Phinney, the wine genius that gave us The Prisoner, has launched a wine project in Roussillon. Called Department 66 -- the region is in France's department 66 -- the wines are very good. 

The Fragile rose is OK, but I thought "D66" -- a blend of grenache, carignan, syrah -- is outstanding. It is loaded with fine tannins to suggest aging ability and garrigue character.  Department 66's "Others" wine adds mourvedre to the blend and is equally delicious and ageworthy.

Phinney seems prone to impulse. He was in Italy when first struck with the wine bug. He was standing at an airport when he created his "Legacy" series after being inspired by  a bumper decal. He fell in love with the natural beauty of the Roussillon region that he launched Department 66 and made Maury a second home.

I'm not complaining. D66 sells for $38 a bottle; Others goes for $25.  Fair prices for what you get.

Feeling blue? Here's a wine for you

Those damn French are at it again. A blue wine is selling like quiche in southern France. Sacre bleu!

"Vindigo," a chardonnay made in Spain, is selling out at hotels in the French town of Sete. It is marketed by Rene Le Bail just in time for the vacation season along the Cote d'Azur. He likens the wine to the blue waters of the French Riviera and insists he will limit distribution to small on-premise locations.

The first 2,000-bottle order was sold in days. He's ordered 35,000 more bottles.

The turquoise color comes from a naturally occurring pigment, called anthocanin that's derived from filtering the white wine through grape skins. Frankly, it must look more like Windex.

Debunking those wine rules

I was reading a recipe the other day that called for a Far Niente chardonnay and I imagined chefs scurrying around town in a fruitless search for the wine.  How silly. There is more than one chardonnay that would do well with a recipe.

And that got me to thinking of rules. Guidelines in the wine world are appreciated, but rules are not because they are so absolute. Take, for example, white wine with fish and red wine with meat. Good guideline, but I can come up with many exceptions. Tuna and salmon do better with red wines.

And then there is the rule that cheap wines on restaurant wine lists are terrible. I had a Boutari wine from Greece the other night for $34 and it was great, despite being the cheapest white wine on the list. With markups as high as 400 percent, you can't afford to order the most expensive wine.

What about the rule of serving white wine in narrow, tapered glasses? I've recently discovered that a full-body chardonnay tastes better when poured in a wide mouth glass generally reserved for red wines. A complex chardonnay needs to breathe before you pick up its subtleties.

I can go on and on about rules.. But I won't.

Old mourvedre shows the power of the grape

I'm a sucker for deals on old wines. They are often discounted because a store is eager to unload them. However, they come with risk. If they were in excellent condition, they wouldn't be discounted, right?

While touring Domaine Tempier in Bandol, I noticed a half-dozen wines from La Laidiere, a neighboring property Domaine Tempier had recently acquired. Red blends (mourvedre, grenache and cinsault) dating back to the 1991 vintage were selling for under 30 euros apiece.  I'm sure Tempier got them with the deal and was eager to sell them because they were someone else's wine.

Veronique Peyraud, one of the sisters running Domaine Tempier, recommended to me the 1993 because it had the highest concentration of mourvedre -- 80 percent. For about $30, how could I resist?

It was a fabulous wine -- the fruit was a little tired, but the structure was holding up. It showed the longevity of wines made mostly from mourvedre.

Veronique was right to point me to a mourvedre-dominated wine. I enjoyed Domaine Tempier's 2014 red blend -- about 60 percent mourvedre -- the following night. It was a beautiful, tannic monster with dense, complex dark berry fruit. Clearly, it could age 20 years.

Mourvedre, called monastrell in neighboring Spain, is a foundation grape to blends made in southern France. Although it often has off-putting aromas, mourvedre provides the hammer to a blend. Grenache and cinsault soften the wine and their floral elements offset the rotten egg notes that often accompany mourvedre.

Tempier's mourvedre now has me in search of similar wines from the Bandol area.

Domaine Tempier's exquiste wines

While on a cruise of the Med, my wife and I had the pleasure of stopping by Domaine Tempier while our ship was moored off Bandol, France. Bandol is arguably the epi-center of the world’s best rose. It is here where rose is often the primary wine made for vacationing Europeans who love to sit in their sidewalk cafes in August.

I have long admired Tempier’s roses – not cheap but more complex and drier than cheap copycats from the U.S. and Spain that are mere after-thoughts in large portfolios. Tempier didn’t disappoint me during my brief visit with Veronique Peyraud, one of several children involved in the operation owned by their parents since 1936. The property was in the family before then, but winemaking was interrupted by phylloxera in the 1940s. Still, some gnarled vines managed to survive and are more than 100 years old.

As good as the roses are, I was more surprised by the Domaine Tempier white blend of clairette, ugni blanc, bourboulenc and marsanne. You get the feeling this exquisite, dry wine will age gracefully for decades.

The estate’s flagship may be its Cuvee Classique, a red blend of mourvedre (75 percent), grenache, cinsault and carignan. It is incredibly dense and complex with dark fruit flavors and a rustic style with gritty tannins.

Domaine Tempier’s success is due largely to its southern facing vineyards, its soil and maritime winds, but also its particular winemaking standards. It does not fine or filter its wines. It is made from organically grown grapes and natural yeasts are used for fermentation. Its red wines are aged in large oak casks.