Odd Bacchus

A hotsy-totsy bottle also helps differentiate high-end Prosecco from the basic stuff.

How many parties have I attended at which I spotted a bottle of cheap Prosecco, perhaps even served in a red plastic cup? Frankly, it’s usually a relief — I’d much rather sip a $10 Prosecco than a Barefoot Bubbly or some such. Even inexpensive Prosecco is usually cheerful and well-balanced, if not anything worth deep contemplation. Really, though, what more can one ask from a party wine?

But cheap and cheerful is not Prosecco’s only mood, as reaffirmed by a recent lunch I attended that was hosted by the Consorzio Tutela del Vino Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco. (Full disclosure: The lunch and wines were provided free of charge.) We tried seven different Proseccos, all of which exhibited complexity as well as food-friendliness. The trick is that these were all classified as Prosecco Superiore DOCG.

Most Proseccos, and certainly the most inexpensive ones, are classed as DOC (Denominazione di Origine Controllata). These wines come from grapes grown anywhere within the DOC zone — Italy’s largest DOC, in fact — an expanse of almost 35,000 acres. Most of this DOC is flat and relatively unexciting, at least in vinous terms.

The vineyards with more potential for high quality are in the smaller DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) zone. The approximately 15,000 acres of the Prosecco DOCG occupy picturesque hills around the towns of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, hence the consorzio’s rather unwieldy name. Fortunately for the non-Italian-speaking consumer, there is no need to remember the name of the consorzio or the towns. If you look for Prosecco with the letters DOCG on the label, you’re off to a good start.

Meyer lemon semifreddo with fresh berries and cardamom granola at Sepia

Terroir geeks will want to go one step further and look for the word “Rive,” which indicates that the grapes for the Prosecco were grown on an especially notable site. We tried two such Proseccos at the lunch. The 2018 Sommariva Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore Rive di S. Michele Extra Dry had an enticing orangey aroma, sharp and frothy bubbles, and notes of sweet chalk and dark citrus. It was an excellent pairing with some salmon topped with preserved lemon-caper butter. And the 2018 Adami Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore Vigneto Giardino Asciutto Rive di Colbertaldo — good gracious, just writing out the names of these wines doubles the word count of this article — felt ripe and lush but pointy, with juicy acids and elegantly sharp bubbles. It was just sweet enough to pair with some Meyer lemon semifreddo.

The drier Proseccos we tried were also delicious (“extra dry” is, confusingly, not as dry as “dry” or “brut”). There was the ethereal NV Bisol Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore Jeio Brut, which had notes of melon and citrus; its round, full mouthfeel evaporated into prickly froth. The NV Villa Sandi Valdobbiadene Superiore di Cartizze Brut La Riveta smelled of chalk, lime and stone fruit, and though its acids and bubbles were zesty, it felt classy, finishing on a mineral note (the word “Cartizze” on a label is also encouraging; the vineyards there are particularly well-regarded). I also enjoyed the well-balanced and elegant 2018 Col Sandago Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore Vigna del Cuc Brut, which we sipped as an aperitif.

Only the 2017 BiancaVigna Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore Rive di Soligo Dossagio Zero was not to my taste. This bottle had lots of promising words on its label — Superiore, Rive, DOCG — but two of those words were deal-breakers for me: Dossagio Zero. The equivalent of “Zero Dosage” or “Brut Nature,” Dossagio Zero means, essentially, that the wine is bone-dry (see here for a more in-depth explanation). I like dry wine, up to a point. But sugar in wine can be like salt in food. You need a little bit sometimes, for balance. This wine tasted bracingly tart on its own and was palatable only when paired with food. There surely are some good sparkling wines that are Dossagio Zero, Zero Dosage or Brut Nature, but I have tasted precious few of them.

Prosecco Superiore DOCG costs more than Prosecco DOC, of course, and some of you may well be wondering if it’s really worth the extra money. If the descriptions above don’t convince you, consider watching the video below, in which we blind-taste a Mionetto Prosecco DOC against a Mionetto Prosecco Superiore DOCG. They cost about $10 and $20, respectively, which means that the difference between them ought to be readily apparent. We put that hypothesis to the test:

Note: The lunch and Proseccos described in the post above were provided free of charge. The wines in the video we purchased at full retail price.

Winemaker of The Four Graces, Marc Myers

I don’t buy Oregon Pinot Noir, and I haven’t written about Pinot Noir from Oregon on this site. Not once in Odd Bacchus’s eight years of existence. The problems I had with Oregon Pinot Noir were twofold.

First, I couldn’t afford anything that was more than merely drinkable. As any wine writer will tell you, Pinot Noir is a “finicky” grape, and it’s very difficult to produce good Pinot inexpensively. Lettie Teague of the Wall Street Journal just wrote a column about this very fact (she did find two Oregon Pinots that each cost $20 that she liked, the 2017 La Crema and the 2017 Stoller Family Estate Dundee Hills).

Second, when I did drink an Oregon Pinot Noir, more often than not, I detected a certain meaty quality. I didn’t care for it, and I saw no reason to shell out $20 (or more) to experience it.

Nor did Oregon Pinot Gris, one of the state’s signature whites, ever dazzle me. Only the occasional Müller-Thurgau or Pinot Blanc caught my eye.

And so it was with rather low expectations that I went to a recent tasting of Oregon Pinot Noir, held here in Chicago. The PR representative who invited me was very kind, even remembering that I had been traveling during last year’s tasting, so I felt I had to at least give it a try.

No stranger to the Pinot Noirs of Burgundy — I’ve had the fortune to visit the region on four separate occasions — I wanted to know what the argument for Oregon was. So I decided to ask every winery representative I met that very question. Why drink Oregon Pinot Noir, rather than an example from Burgundy, New Zealand or somewhere else?

The “Pinot in the City” tasting in Chicago

I got a lot of fascinating answers:

Rebecca Oliver, the National Sales Manager for Lemelson Vineyards, sounded two notes that I was to hear more than once over the course of the tasting: “We have such camaraderie here in Oregon, and the sense of place is unlike anywhere else; Oregon Pinot tastes different from Pinot in other places. We’re all farmers, and we’re all here promoting Oregon first, then Pinot, then ourselves.”

Megan Joy, Associate Winemaker for Goodfellow Family Cellars, had this to say: “The beautiful thing about Pinot Noir is that it’s an expression of place. It’s not about one or the other. There are lots of beautiful Pinots out there from different places, but I happen to love the ones from Oregon.”

Heather Early, the Illinois State Manager for The Four Graces winery, did not mince words: “Oregon — it’s like the Wild West. We don’t have the rules and specifications they have in Burgundy. We do whatever the f*** we want.”

Ashley Campion, Assistant Winemaker of Lemelson Vineyards

I also asked The Four Graces’ Winemaker, Marc Myers, what he thought: “I would say passion. Everyone I know who works in Willamette is passionate, and I haven’t seen that everywhere. And second, I would say collaboration. We’re all working together [to promote Oregon wines].”

Jessie Bates, the National Sales Manager for Trisaetum, didn’t necessarily care for the comparison with Burgundy: “I wouldn’t say to buy [Oregon Pinot Noir] instead, buy it alongside. We know what our relationship to the Old World is; I don’t say the “B” word. It’s very different. It’s America, it’s Oregon wines. Americans are much more sophisticated now than they’ve ever been. And the message is that we can make wines as good as any in the Old World, in spite of the relative youth of the region.”

The Director of Sales of Dusky Goose, Natalie Sigafoos, echoed what some of her fellow Oregonians had to say: “It’s a matter of style. No matter who the winemaker is, we have a central core, even with different soils and climates. Also, we’re very supportive and we lift each other up. The collaboration and cohesiveness is amazing. Whenever a problem comes up in a vineyard, vineyard managers talk about it with each other. Winemakers have each other on speed dial. I moved from Napa 15 years ago, and it was not like that at all.”

But what is the central core of Oregon Pinot? And is it worth the money? I tasted examples from the above wineries, wineries chosen entirely at random. (Or more accurately, chosen because there weren’t many tasters crowding their tables at the time I approached.) I didn’t detect any unpleasant meatiness in any of the wines. In fact, I didn’t find a stinker in the bunch. Every single wine was obviously very well made, and most of them were even to my taste.

The 2015 Lemelson Vineyards “Thea’s Selection” Willamette Valley Pinot Noir ($34) is a fine example. It had an enticing aroma of ripe cherries and spiciness, and I loved its texture: simultaneously full and light on its feet. I mentioned this to Oliver, who agreed. “Texture is paramount to us,” she said, and those are welcome words to this mouthfeel queen. I also very much enjoyed its ripe fruit flavors, focused white-pepper spice and precise sour cherry acidity that kept the bottom from ever falling out. What a delight.

Goodfellow Family Cellars’ 2016 Whistling Ridge Vineyard Heritage No. 7 Single Block Pinot Noir ($70) was similarly delicious, with a hint of violet in the aroma and some pie crust mixed in with the cherry fruit and focused acidity.

The 2017 Four Graces Dundee Hills Estate Vineyard Reserve Pinot Noir ($45) was more brooding and dark; a sexy wine that had just a hint of spicy funk mixed in with the expected dark-cherry fruit and refined white-pepper spice.

Dusky Goose also made a wonderful wine from Dundee Hills fruit (this region is regarded by many as one of Oregon’s best). The 2014 Dusky Goose Dundee Hills Pinot Noir ($70) had those delightful notes of purple flowers and ripe fruit that bordered on cough-syrup cherry. But the focused spiciness and lively acidity had such force, the wine maintained excellent balance. It was at once pretty and strong.

Nor did the 2017 Trisaetum Willamette Valley Pinot Noir ($30) disappoint, with its juicy dark-fruit aroma, flavors of cherries and pie crust and well-integrated tannins. This was also a wine that balanced its ripe fruit with aplomb, developing with deliberateness and obvious structure.

In addition to these wines, I highly recommend trying Dusky Goose’s 2015 Chardonnay ($60) — dare I say it felt Burgundian? — and Trisaetum’s 2018 Ribbon Ridge Estate Dry Riesling ($49), redolent of dark citrus and pear.

Well, it seems there is a whole state’s worth of delicious wines that I’ve denying myself. It’s not often that I spend $30 to $70 (retail) on a bottle of wine, I must admit, but if that is within your budget, Oregon’s wines should definitely be in your sights. I’m still unconvinced that the state’s less-expensive offerings are worthwhile, but in that price range, the wines are a delight, pure and simple.

Domaine Carneros Winemaker Zak Miller

After meeting with Ivo Jeremaz of Grgich Hills winery in Napa, I resolved to give the famous valley more of a fair shake on this blog. I’ve mostly ignored Napa for the entirety of Odd Bacchus’s eight years of existence, and it’s time I gave one of the world’s most important wine regions a bit of attention. It didn’t take long for an opportunity to present itself.

Along with two other writers, I sat down to (a complimentary) lunch with Zak Miller, one of the few winemakers I’ve met whose name appears nowhere on his winery’s website. That’s no reflection on the quality of his work, however, as my dining companions and I were about to discover.

Miller doesn’t make Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay, as one might expect from a Napa winemaker. Instead, he crafts superlative sparkling wines, wines that could compete with top Champagne any day. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in a blind tasting, the bottlings he makes for Domaine Carneros might even top those of Taittinger, the Champagne house that founded the winery in 1987.

If you’ve ever driven between Napa and San Francisco, you’ve almost certainly seen Domaine Carneros. It stands at the southern end of the valley, marked by an imposing chateau that looks transplanted straight from the Loire (in fact, the building dates from 1989). The Napa Valley is climatically a bit counterintuitive; it’s cooler at its southern end, where breezes from the Pacific have more of an influence. Cooler weather makes for better sparkling wine, because it’s important for the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes to retain ample acidity. If they ripen too much, the resulting bubbly will be unbalanced.

The Champagne region, in north-central France, famously uses Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in its sparkling wines, just as Domaine Carneros does. Pinot Meunier is also allowed in Champagne blends, but Miller uses none of it. “We don’t need insurance in Carneros,” he explained. In the less-predictable climate of Champagne, Pinot Meunier ends up in the wine when Chardonnay and/or Pinot Noir fail to ripen properly. “Something like 50 percent of the Champagne region is planted with Pinot Meunier,” Miller said, “and yet you’ll almost never see it listed on the label!” Domaine Carneros uses only Chardonnay and Pinot Noir because they tend to make higher-quality sparkling wines.

I knew California was capable of producing very good sparkling wine — reasonably priced Chandon regularly finds its way into my glass — but I hadn’t tasted very many truly great California sparklers. That changed with the first wine Miller poured, a 2012 Domaine Carneros “Le Rêve” Blanc de Blancs. The 2012 is the current release of this 100-percent Chardonnay, the “tête du cuvée” (top wine) of Domaine Carneros.

All that time aging on the lees (yeast) gives it a sensational richness. One whiff, and I immediately knew I was about to drink something special. It had an enticingly toasty aroma, but it smelled lively as well. “This sees no oak,” Miller told us. “All the toastiness comes from the bottle-aging.” Lengthy bottle-aging is expensive — it costs a lot of money to wait for seven years to sell your wine — but the payoff in this case is huge. I loved the focused green-apple acids, the round fruit, the rich undergirding of toast… And the pin-prick bubbles felt thoroughly elegant. Le Rêve is expensive at $115 a bottle, but its flavor and texture live up to its price tag. What a gorgeous pairing with some tangy sourdough bread topped with fresh, creamy butter.

Miller tasting the Domaine Carneros Estate Pinot Noir

If you’re looking to impress someone, this bubbly is an ideal choice. On the other hand, if I happened to have a bottle of Le Rêve on hand, I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself drinking the entire thing alone. I’m an only child. Sharing is hard.

The less-expensive 2015 Domaine Carneros Brut Vintage Cuvée would be something that I might consider sharing, but only with someone I really, really like. At about $36 a bottle, this sparkler overdelivers in terms of flavor. I’ll take this wine over a $47 bottle of Veuve any day. “This has immediate sex appeal,” my friend Liz Barrett rightly noted. It smelled brighter than Le Rêve, but it still had some toastiness. It tasted juicy and clean, with some minerality on the finish (and some lime curd, as Liz detected). Another food-friendly wine, this bubbly blends 51 percent Chardonnay, 47 percent Pinot Noir and 2 percent Pinot Gris, which “lifts the aroma,” Miller explained.

Domaine Carneros also makes some excellent still wines. I thoroughly enjoyed the 2016 Domaine Carneros Estate Pinot Noir, fragrant with black cherry and fresh herbs, like sage and bay. When I took a sip, it first felt rather ethereal, hovering over the palate before grounding itself with some focused baking spice and a touch of earth. It was an ideal pairing with some roast chicken breast. Good Pinot is expensive, and at $44, this wine isn’t cheap. But compared to Burgundy of similar quality, it’s an excellent value.

Meyer lemon tart with toasted meringue, frozen yogurt and chiffon “croutons” at Somerset

We finished lunch with a sparkling rosé, a style of wine I don’t ordinarily seek out. Rosé Champagne is terrifically expensive, and other sparkling rosés tend to leave me underwhelmed. The NV Domaine Carneros Cuvée de la Pompadour, however, was racy and exciting. It smelled of lemon, red currant and rose, and it had zesty, sharply focused flavors of juicy lemons and pink apples. This bubbly was superb with our lemon tart dessert, which made the wine feel creamier. Madame de Pompadour introduced Champagne to the French court, and I’m sure she would have been very pleased with this selection.

Over the course of our lunch, Miller explained the effort that goes into making wines like these, but it really wasn’t necessary. The work was obvious as soon as I took a sip (or really, even as soon as I gave the wine a sniff). Champagne and Franciacorta arguably have the best reputations for bubbly, but as these bottlings by Domaine Carneros show, Europe does not have a monopoly on top-quality sparkling wine.

For more on Domaine Carneros, check out Liz Barrett’s article about these wines here.

Note: These wines and the lunch were provided free of charge.

Napa doesn’t get a lot of coverage on Odd Bacchus. Its Chardonnays and Cabernets are the antithesis of “the unusual and obscure.” Napa is the wine powerhouse of the United States, and it’s as famous as any other wine region. I wonder if there’s a single steakhouse any place on the planet that doesn’t have at least one Napa Cabernet on its wine list (steakhouses in countries that ban alcohol excepted)? No, Napa’s wines are world-famous and very popular.

But it wasn’t always so. Indeed, very much within living memory, Napa was a vinous backwater. The name “Napa,” which nowadays connotes serious wines and serious luxury — there is no shortage of hotels in the valley that charge upwards of $1,000 a night — connoted little of anything to most people as recently as the early 1970s. France produced the world’s greatest wines, and that was that. Napa was small potatoes.

Then, in 1976, Steven Spurrier organized the famous (or infamous, if you’re French) “Judgment of Paris” tasting, as it’s now known. He gathered six Napa Chardonnays and four Premier Cru and Grand Cru Burgundies (also Chardonnay, of course), and had nine French wine critics and sommeliers blind-taste them. He did the same with several Napa Cabernets and top Bordeaux wines. The tasters were shocked, even outraged, to learn that their first choices of wines, both red and white, came from California.

The 2008 film dramatizing the event, “Bottle Shock,” ranks as one of my favorite wine-themed movies. Far better than “Sideways,” the popularity of which continues to mystify me.

In any case, although the French press refused to report on the event for quite some time, the tasting sent shock waves around the wine world and put Napa on the map. The winner of the Chardonnay tasting, Chateau Montelena, had Mike Grgich as its winemaker. His 1973 Chardonnay beat out some of the very best white Burgundies, a feat which still impresses me, considering how much I love white Burgundy.

Although many disputed the statistical validity of the tasting, it left no doubt that Napa could produce world-class wines, and Grgich bore no small amount of responsibility for that. He went on to found Grgich Hills Estate, in partnership with the Hills Brothers Coffee family, and he still has a hand in making its wines.

But most of the winemaking responsibility now belongs to his nephew, Ivo Jeremaz, who, like Grgich, was originally born in Croatia (the Grgich family has a second winery there, which makes excellent Pošip and Plavac Mali). Liz Barrett and I recently had the chance to interview Jeremaz on our web series, Name That Wine, and taste three of his bottlings. He farms his vineyards organically and strives for elegance in the bottle, not just power.

I sometimes poo-poo Napa Cabs and Chards, but I can’t deny that I loved these wines. I was also impressed by Jeremaz’s Zinfandel. Zins can often be ponderous jam bombs, but the Grgich Hills version managed to be ripe as well as light on its feet. I suppose it makes sense that Jeremaz produces a great Zinfandel; the grape originated in his home country. Making a graceful Zinfandel happens in the vineyard, I learned, and it’s fascinating to hear how he does it:

What a joy to taste these wines, and considering the balance and richness they deliver, they’re awfully good values for the money. Good value Cabernet and Chardonnay from Napa? Who would have guessed?

And as for the statistical validity of the tasting… Well, Francophiles kept trying to redo the tasting in the hopes of getting different results. Arguing that French wines age better than American wines, some wine critics repeated the tasting two years later, in 1978, holding the tasting in San Francisco. The three top Chardonnays and the three top Cabernets in this tasting were all American (the 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay placed second this time, after a 1974 Chalone).

Lest you think that not enough time had elapsed for the French wines to show their age-worthiness, the French Culinary Institute held an anniversary tasting in 1986. They blind-tasted the same vintages of Cabernets and Bordeaux from the same wineries as in the original 1976 tasting. Napa Cabernets from Clos Du Val and Ridge earned the top two places.

But is 10 years really enough time? Perhaps, given a little longer, the results would be different? Spurrier organized a 30-year-anniversary tasting in 2006, opening up those same Cabernet and Bordeaux bottlings from the same 1970s vintages as before. This time, all five of the top ten slots were awarded to Napa Cabernets. Haut-Brion, for example, came in eighth!

That’s four separate tastings, and in all of them, Napa wines came in first. I’m no statistician, but I’m sensing a trend.

You can read about the tastings in more detail here.

I’ve written about Bordeaux and Burgundy on this site with some frequency. Perhaps it’s time I give Napa a little more of a shot. It certainly was a great pleasure to meet Ivo Jeremaz and taste his Grgich Hill wines, especially since they come with such a memorable story.

Now if only someone would offer to help with those $1,000-a-night hotels…

Note: The wines tasted in this episode of Name That Wine were provided free of charge.