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GET READY FOR PASSOVER With Passover now a WEEK away, it's time to think about GOOD Kosher wine.Let's start with a little understanding of what makes a wine Kosher. Grapes are grapes, neither Kosher nor non-Kosher until they arrive at the so-called crushpad where they begin the process of becoming wine. Once that happens, for the wine to be Kosher, the grapes must be handled from that point by Sabbath-observant Jews. So far so good. So, let's assume that the grapes are crushed, pressed and fermented by this Kosher crew, using only Kosher ingredients and approved processes. For example, wine can be fined with egg whites, which is pretty standard in the industry, but not using Isinglass which is made from Sturgeon bladders and is decidedly not Kosher. The wine is then aged and bottled, again under Rabbinical supervision. At that point, the wine can simply be distributed, but the hitch is that for the wine to remain Kosher down to and on the Passover table, it can only be opened and poured by a Sabbath-observant Jew. To deal with that, many wineries subject the wine to a heating process (it's not really boiling, although that's a popular misconception) called Flash Pasteurization, which renders the wine Mevushal and it then can be handled by anyone. However, wine that's been heated has been, well, mistreated, at least in my humble view. My friend and teacher Jeff Morgan has a nice, concise primer on the what makes a wine Kosher and the distinction of Mevushal or non-Mevushal - read it here. And please, avoid Mevushal wines if you can, and try these: Covenant Cabernet. From Jeff Morgan (full disclosure here) and Leslie Rudd of Rudd Vineyards, this is the best Kosher wine you or I have ever tasted. Not cheap but c'mon, splurge a little for Passover! Red C Cabernet Second label California Cabernet from the Covenant people; still not cheap but more affordable at about $45 per, and outstanding in its own right. Pommery Champagne Brut Royal. This non-vintage is 35% Chardonnay, 35% Pinot Noir and 30% Pinot Meunier. Rich, yet nicely acidic. Dalton Sauvignon Blanc Reserve. Tried to find a non-Mevushal SB from NZ - no luck - but this one from Ha Eretz is pretty nice. Domaine Lafond Tavel Rhone Rose. I drink this all the time after, er, Church. It's medium-bodied, dry rose Kosher wine, non-Mevushal, made from Greanche, Cinsault and Syrah. The '06 and '07 are widely available too, I imagine. Ramon Cardova Rioja. Tempranillo from old vines - it's got some nice spice and leather, although it may lack a bit in body. Great bargain, too. Domaine St. Benoit Chateauneuf du Pape. Outstanding offering that's a combination of Grenache, Mourvedre, Syrah - and the only Kosher Chateauneuf du Pape I know of. This is a find. NOTE: The links to most of these wines takes you to online store headquartered in Skokie, IL. I don't have any interest in that store (or any store) and I don't know the people who own it. It's just that they've got a great range of Kosher wine and a lot of information too. If you want one or these wines, you can purchase online, or ask your local retailer. Labels: Chateauneuf du Pape, Covenant Cabernet, Domaine St. Benoit, Flash Pasteurization, Kosher Wine, Mevushal, Passover, Ramon Cardova Rioja, Wine-Flair WINE IN THE TIME OF WAR I spent about a year in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war, living in the U.S. Embassy with 12 other Marines (and an excellent Lebanese cook, Mr. Tony Saliba, who kept us jarheads well fed).As anyone who lived there anytime from 1975 until about 1990 will tell you, the Lebanese showed a remarkable ability to continue normal life and commerce - for which they're famous - during intense urban fighting. So we Yanks adopted their ways, and during lulls in the shelling we'd leave the embassy to enjoy the waterfront Corniche, or nightlife on Hamra street. For me, that invariably included dinner and of course wine, and I often tried the "local stuff" - from Ksara, Lebanon's oldwest winery, and Chateau Musar among others. Remarkably, winemaking went on uninterrupted even as the war raged, and today many more wineries have sprung up to create what is now a thriving wine tourism business. Others, such as Massaya, which produces around 25,000 cases of excellent wine as well as Arak, waited out the war and then expanded significantly when conditions improved.  While "the Lebanon" is still plagued with sporadic violence, the country is mostly peaceful and from all accounts, vineyards are producing excellent fruit. Many of the new wineries are located in the spectacular Bekaa Valley - the home of the Roman temple of Bacchus - where there'll also be a wine museum by 2011, a first in the Arab world. I haven't been back since the war, so I'll let The Wall Street Journal Online describe Lebanon's wine industry. If you're truly an adventurous wine traveller, it sounds like there's no place better. Labels: Chateau Musar, Civil War, Ksara, Lebanese Wine, Massaya, US Embassy Beirut WINE SHORTS A PORT BY ANY OTHER NAME - STILL AS SWEET? A lot of US-made wines carry European place names, and Port is one of them. But as European countries and the EU (European Union) have ramped up to protect those names in international trade, American producers see their brand names and brand recognition threatened, with good reason. If an American producer can't call its wine "Port" anymore, substituting "Sweet red dessert wine made in the traditional Portugese style with four noble grapes" probably won't work so well, either. So, what to call these wines, that the TTB (the US regulatory agency for wineries) will allow? Wines & Vines magazine covers the issue and talks to some California winemakers dealing with the problem. PROSECCO GRANTED D.O.C. STATUS A larger area that produces Italy's sparkling wine Prosecco (made from a grape of the same name) has been granted DOC status by the Italian government. As in Champagne, only sparkling wine from this newly-designated region may be legally labeled "Prosecco" beginning August 1st. Prosecco is produced using the Charmat (bulk) method as opposed to the Champenoise method, so it needs to be drunk very young - under two years - and it won't ever have the lasting fizz of Champagne. Not to worry; it's a wonderful, refreshing wine nonetheless. TENNESSEE JOINS NY AND NJ TO CONSIDER WINE SALES IN GROCERY STORES On March 24, committees of the Tennessee legislature will hold a "study session" to consider allowing grocery and convenience stores to begin selling wine. New York and New Jersey are also looking at similar bills...and there's a lot of contention around them all. Wine and liquor stores generally oppose these laws, but small wineries in particular seem to welcome them. Their view is that grocery stores represent potential new markets, because they are often ignored by retailers and distributors. And while consumers may benefit, how many small grocers and convenience store operators will have knowledgeable wine staff? The decisions of these lawmakers will surely make some people happy and many others, well, whine. GOOD THINGS COME IN...BOXES? While at last week's Wineries Unlimited show, I stopped by the booth of the Scholle company from suburban Chicago, which makes liners and spigots that go into some of today's best boxed wines.Now, let you think that "best" and "boxed" are mutually exclusive, I did taste several wines using Scholle packaging and some were quite good. I especially enjoyed the Black Box (aptly named) Cabernet pictured here with marketing manager Katie Scarpelli, as well as a Sauvignon Blanc and a Malbec from two other producers. And despite a "few" tastings before I arrived at Scholle's booth, I picked out from across the room their signature spigot, which I saw a couple days earlier in a news release photo of the Red Truck wine mini-barrel, another product that Scholle supports. There is and will continue to be a prejudice against boxed wines among fine wine consumers. But this issue is really less about the packaging and more about the willingness of fine wine producers to put good stuff into those boxes. And as much as I enjoyed the Black Box Cab - and I did - I understand that they're rather inconsistent producers, with one good batch here and a mediocre or poor one the next. So the boxed wine industry is going to have to contend with and ultimately tackle that issue to be successful: they have to deliver good wine, not plonk, and they have to do it consistently. And like adopting any new thing (think of the early days of screwcaps) it will take time. Of course, in the age of Obama, the industry may have a little help as the general public increasingly pays attention to carbon footprints; the box wine industry can rightly claim to have much smaller feet. And they can point to a number of other advantages over bottles, such as no worries about cork taint; easy storage and transport; and a shelf life of up to 40 days as the liner collapses as you drink, keeping air out. These really are ideal for on-premise sales (bars and restaurants) of value wines, among other uses. And they're good news for the winery, too, as they cost a fraction, maybe 15%, of traditional bottles, all-in. Stay tuned as I find more good (I hope) boxed wines to taste. And to learn more about boxed wine, go here. Labels: Black Box Cabernet, Malbec, Sauvignon Blanc, Scholle, Wineries Unlimited COCOON? NO, WINEPOD! If you're a serious home winemaker, you should look into the WinePod. I did, last week at the Wineries Unlimited event in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where I spent some time with Tracey Mason, the VP Sales and Marketing of Provina, which makes the WinePod. Aside from being aesthetically attractive - cool looking, that is - the WinePod is by far the most advanced small winemaking system I've ever seen, and it's attracted the likes of Cornell and UC Davis, which are top schools for winemaking and grapegrowing in the US. These and other universities will use it for research, but you can use it to make great wine - about four cases of red at one time, or five cases of white.  The WinePod is about as self-contained as they come, with a 75 liter, stainless steel fermentation tank that is completely temperature-controlled, from 50 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It's got a built-in press for initial crushing of the grapes, or you can do an initial cold-soak maceration, where the juice is cooled and held at a constant temperature to increase fruit flavors before the fermentation begins. The unit also has a wireless Brix sensor, which allows you to monitor the sugar levels of your must (fermenting grape juice) pretty effortlessly throughout the entire process. The sensor itself sits in a cage at the bottom of the tank and pops out for easy cleaning, and self-agitates periodically to ensure that you're getting accurate readings. And there's an airlock on the variable lid so that you can take and taste samples during fermentation without having to pump any of the juice, something that winemakers don't like to do if they can avoid it. The entire unit weighs just 125 pounds and is easily moved using built-in, retractable casters. If you're making red wine, you can set up a fully automated punchdown to push the cap of skins, seeds and stems through the juice periodically to extract color, tannin and other important things according to the style of wine you're going for. You can also program the WinePod to "submerge" the cap for maximum extract. And starting next month, with the newest version of WineCoach software, you can set the unit up to mimic the fermentation profile of a large commercial fermenter (although I'm not entirely sure why you'd want to unless you are doing academic research).And you can run a whole line of WinePods from a single laptop, each making a different style of wine if that's what you want. Provina says that their pomace removal system makes cleanup a snap, which I believe after seeing the unit up close, although I didn't see that demonstrated. The software, which comes with the WinePod, gives you detailed readouts at any time, but you can get basic information such as temperature and degrees Brix from an LED readout on the front of the tank.  The WinePod is $4500 - not a tiny investment, but not really a king's ransom, either, and certainly worthwhile for a serious home winemaker who wants to make a superior product under carefully controlled conditions. There's also a "Garagiste" system, shown at right, which is sort of a WinePod "light" and costs under $2000, although it lacks most of the bells and whistles that make the WinePod so cool and advanced.Go here for more information, or contact Tracy at 408.226.9463. Labels: Brix, Garagiste, Pomace, Tracey Mason, UC Davis, Winepod WINE SHORTS Find Your Lost Wine Had a great wine somewhere but don't remember the name, or where it was from, or the winery? Well, winelabelworld.com has a collection of labels, sorted by country, style, wine color and other distinguishing features. Find the one you're missing, or add your own. Irish Wine? No Way. Way! I've had Mead, which is really not wine at all, and really...sweet and disgusting if you ask me. Sorry. But Ireland now has a real winery making authentic, and from all accounts, quaffable if not transcendent (!) table wines including Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet, Merlot and Chardonnay. This is the day to read about the winemaker, here. Miles' Merlot Makes a Move...Upward! If you saw Sideways, you know that Miles didn't want to drink any "f***ing Merlot!" He had good reason. As the WSJ Online points out, way too much American Merlot has been, well, lousy - sweet, over-oaky, reeking of vanilla, and flabby; that is, lacking the acidity needed to taste fresh and to keep your mouth as well as your nose interested. Some producers are doing something about that, even at the <$10 price point, a real sweet spot in a down economy. Napa's Charles Krug winery is singled out for recognition, although its offering is closer to $20. Have a look. A Rosey Future? Except for Champagne and sparkling wines, French wine laws (and they got a lot of 'em) prohibit making rose wines by adding a bit of red to a white base wine. The same holds true across the European Union (EU), and popular wisdom is that that's a good thing - superior rose wines are made from red grapes, with the juice held on the skins for as little as a few hours. But there's a rule in the works in Brussels to change that, which supposedly would open the market to a lot of inferior plonk, and the French in particular, are seeing red about it. A GREEN WINE FROM A RED TRUCK? If you're having, oh, 10 people over for a glass of red wine but don't plan to break out the Chateau Angelus, you might want to look into a mini-barrel from Sonoma's Red Truck winery. This thing holds 3 liters, the equivalent of four bottles, and it's designed - obviously - to look like a wine barrel, complete with "rings", an "oak" finish and "burned in" image and name. They're only offering it for sale right now at Sam's Club, but later in the year I understand they'll offer it much more widely. I haven't tasted (yet) this rather unusual mix of Syrah, Petit Sirah,Cabernet Franc, Mourvedre and Grenache. Curiously, though, the news release and all the subsequent wine industry coverage that I saw really focused on the packaging - innovative, relatively low carbon footprint, superior preservation for up to 40 days, and an inclined inner liner that requires no tipping to get the last drop of wine. As for what's inside? The winemaker's notes say "Medium-bodied and complex, flavors of chocolate, berries, cherries and licorice abound. The black pepper finish settles with smooth tannins." Not sure about the settling part, but as I said, I'll try it out and give you my impressions for what they're worth. But as I've always said, your impressions are really what count. For sure, Red Truck wants on the eco-friendly, "green winery" bandwagon in a big way, and there's nothing wrong with that. Nor is there anything wrong with alternative packaging, especially when it makes a positive difference in the environment without compromising the taste or preservation of the wine. But it won't fit nicely on the shelf, I don't think, next to standard 750 cl bottles, and in the minds of some, it's still gonna be a "box" wine, which is why I say taste first. I do think you'll see more and more good wine - perhaps not super-premium or luxury wine, for awhile - go into alternative packaging like this. But I don't think you'll be "barrel aging" the Red Truck. Labels: Chateau Angelus, Green Winery, Mourvedre, Red Truck Winery, Sam's Club WINE AND HEALTH - HOOEY? Slate magazine says outright that Americans are "obsessed" with the health benefits of wine. Obsessed? No. Interested? Sure. Very interested? A few of us, either 'cause we're in the business, or we're in healthcare, or we drink a lot of wine. Or maybe we'd like to, and want a reason? Why not? And if we seem more interested than our European cousins, it's probably because wine is not (despite the efforts of people like us) a staple at our lunch and dinner tables. Unfortunately - although less so each year - it's still seen as an indulgence and something special, rather than a normal and in fact unremarkable part of a meal. So as guilt-prone Americans we're probably looking for an "excuse" to do something that comes naturally to people in many other countries. The health benefits, whatever they are, are a bonus. See what you think...have a read. Labels: Wine and health VEE-OH-WHAT? Viognier may be an acquired taste, but frankly, so is all wine. It's one of my favorite whites, and its relative thickness - think of viscosity in the context of an oil change in your car, but in a good way - powerful aromas, and hint of honey even when it's bone-dry are my favorite characteristics. "Experts" will tell you that the best ones come from France's Condrieu region, and here in the US, good wines with that name (appellation) can fetch $60-80-100. Yep.So until fairly recently, those prices, its tough-to-pronounce name ("Vee-uh-nyay") and the fact that it wasn't grown or sold much as a named varietal rather than by the place name meant that few people outside wine circles had heard of or tasted it. And when I went to a wine store in Edison, NJ two years ago in search of some, the response from the 20-something salesman was "Is that a country?" Aside from my dismay at the 'state' of geographic ignorance, well, you get the point. So that's why I'm thrilled to see this post from Dezel's Virginia Wine Spot blog about a blind tasting of Viognier held recently in Loudon County, Virginia, outside D.C. It's important to note that Virginia is a pretty impressive producer of Viognier, and you might have expected a native son-wine to take home the prize, somehow, even in a blind tasting. It didn't. The winner? A six-buck offering from California, Honey Moon 2007, which you can get at Trader Joe's. Rather than my ramble on about how wonderful these wines are, I suggest you read the post, do a bit of research online and then ask your retailer the next time you pop in. I do cover Viognier in my Grapes and Wines section. Sic Semper Tyrannis. Labels: Condrieu, Dezel's Virginia Wine Spot, Honey Moon Viognier 2007, Trader Joe's, Viognier |
Main photograph by Christine Costello (View of Gloria Ferrer Vineyards, Carneros, CA).
