Monthly Archives: May 2014

North of Vienna’s Altstadt stands one of the finest cocktail bars in the Austro-Hungarian Empire: Halbestadt, set in a brick arch beneath some railway tracks. Proprietors Erich and Konny focus on classic cocktails, including many almost-forgotten gems popular in the 30s, 40s and 50s. But they also stock the largest selection of mezcal in Vienna, and they’re not afraid to use it to create some truly unusual and cutting-edge cocktails.

Erich blew my mind with this Negroni in which he replaced the gin with mezcal. It tasted remarkably balanced, with pronounced smoky, sweet and bitter flavors harmonizing perfectly. A wonderfully complex flavor journey — one I never would have taken on my own.

The little-known Clover Club cocktail pre-dates Prohibition, if Wikipedia is to be believed, and it’s high time this delicious drink of raspberry, lemon, sugar, egg white and gin had a revival. Erich and Konny use only fresh fruit in their cocktails, ensuring that there was nothing cloying or artificial-tasting about this Clover Club. It tasted tart and fruity, with a bit of juniper from the gin. What a beautifully balanced cocktail.

Despite the general high quality and relative obscurity of Slovenian wines, I haven’t written much about them. I finally figured out the completely irrational reason why: Years ago, on a visit to Movia’s wine bar in Ljubljana, my friend and I were wildly overcharged for some tastes of wine. I was in my mid-20s, just learning about wine, and too shy to say anything to the bartender. Since then, it’s been almost a reflex to avoid Slovenian wine, and Movia’s in particular. Irrational, as I said, but there it is.

It’s time to overcome that aversion. During Slovenia’s Yugoslav decades, wineries concentrated on quantity over quality, as did every other communist wine-making country. But now, Slovenia has “established by far the most successful wine industry [of the former Yugoslav republics],” according to The Oxford Companion to Wine. It goes on to note that “Production is focused on quality and premium quality (vrhunsko) wines, with only about 30 percent of basic table wine quality.” And The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia lavishes praise on Slovenia, calling it “the rising star among the winemaking countries of the Western Balkans.”

It makes good sense that Slovenia, which lies south of Austria and east of Italy, would have the potential to make great wine. Some of its best vineyard sites are “influenced both by the Adriatic and the Alps,” as The World Atlas of Wine describes, and “the green rolling hills provide some excellent grape-ripening sites.” In Slovenia’s west, some of the wine regions simply continue on from the Italian vineyards just across the border.

Feeling ready to once again explore the joys of Slovenian wine, I happily accepted a free sample of 2008 Edi Simčič “Duet” from the Goriška Brda region, which more than one source describes as an extension of Italy’s Collio DOC.

Indeed, The World Atlas of Wine‘s detailed map of Goriška Brda is placed with Friuli, rather than with other Slovenian wine regions. The map locates the Edi Simčič estate in the far south of Goriška Brda, near its more famous neighbor of Movia and the Italian border. Keep an eye out for wines from Goriška Brda. The Oxford Companion calls it “Slovenia’s most esteemed wine district, having begun to move to quality in the late 1980s.” Like neighboring Friuli, Goriška Brda produces many white wines, but both the Oxford Companion and the World Atlas note that Bordeaux-style blends, such as the Simčič “Duet,” are some of the regions best bottlings.

“Don’t put that photo in your blog,” requested fellow wine taster Will White.

I sampled the Simčič “Duet” with some friends recently, and our experience with this blend of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot certainly did nothing to contradict the Companion or the Atlas. It had an aroma of dusky, dark-red fruit with the notes of iron and clay that I associate with Slovenian reds. It’s a big wine. One friend exclaimed, “My first sip hit me hard!” Although the wine is powerful, it exhibits focus and restraint, with well-balanced acids and deep, creamy fruit undergirded with earth. The finish felt tannic but elegant and firmly in control.

According to this charming and rather enigmatic video, the winery first started making this blend in the 90s, when it was “still very shy, but gnomes were forging a star of it.” It’s certainly not shy anymore. The gnomes in the cellar did their work well. It’s now big and delicious, with a rather big $40 price tag to match. That’s beyond what I can usually spend on a bottle, but if you do have the means, the Edi Simčič “Duet” offers more than enough flavor and elegance to justify the price. 

The sample of this wine was kindly provided by Wine Chateau.

I’ve been having a lot of luck with Greek wines lately, so it was with no hesitation that I accepted free samples of two “Sofos” blends from the Peloponnese Peninsula. These wines, produced by Domaine Gioulis, intrigued me for two reasons besides their Greek origin. They each blend an indigenous Greek variety with a well-known international grape, and they are each organic.

In fact, the vineyards which produced these wines are the first in Greece to be “Non-GMO Project Verified.” I’m not convinced that GMOs (genetically modified organisms) are especially widespread in the wine industry — The Oxford Companion to Wine notes that there have been field trials, but “consumer resistance in parts of Europe has been considerable,” and it’s not even clear if genetically modified vines can legally retain their varietal name. Nevertheless, if you wish to be 100% sure that you’re avoiding anything produced from GMOs, these wines are for you.

Both come from the Klimenti region, a “Protected Geographical Indication” (PGI) adjacent to Neméa, one of Greece’s very best wine regions. As The World Atlas of Wine explains, Neméa (and Klimenti too, according to a Sofos press release) has “milder winters and cooler summers than one might expect,” because of the influence of the Mediterranean and the high altitude, respectively. Sofos’ vineyards grow at 750 meters (about 2,500 feet), quite close to the highest zone of Neméa at 2,950 feet. At these altitudes, the vineyards produce “fine, elegant, almost “cool-climate reds,” according to the Atlas.

Sofos (which means “wise old man”) makes its red wine from 50% Agiorgitiko, a variety indigenous to the Neméa region which “can yield long-lived reds” from grapes grown in higher vineyards, according to the Oxford Companion. The other half of the wine is Cabernet Sauvignon, a variety with which Agiorgitiko blends notably well, the Companion asserts.

The high-altitude vineyards and ideal blending partners pay off in the bottle. Enticingly purple and opaque, the 2010 Sofos Red‘s fruit and minerality were evident at first sniff. “It’s that rocky, chalky stuff,” a tasting partner remarked, and another detected “an undertone of super-sweetness in the aroma.” I agreed, smelling chalk, vanilla and red berries in the nose. It started with surprising lightness on the palate, given the deep color, with bright red fruit that darkened and broadened into purple plums, followed by orangey acids and some beefy tannins. Paired with a sausage pizza, spicier notes came to the fore. Quite a value for about $12 a bottle.

The 2013 Sofos White was even more of a surprise. Perhaps because this blend of 50% Moschofilero and 50% Chardonnay lacks stabilizing agents of any kind, my sample continued to ferment in the bottle, and by the time I opened it, it had become all but a sparkling wine. I asked the sales representative whether this sparkle was normal. She checked with the winery, which replied,

The pétillance [light sparkle] is due to the freshness of the wine. The white Sofos comes from the 2013 vintage that was bottled early, in October 2013. Thus there is a small percentage of bottles that could have appear pétillance in the border. The slight existence of CO2 -pétillance- in a fresh wine is something natural that unfortunately we cannot avoid it in 100%.

In my bottle it was no mere pétillance — the bubbles were clearly evident in the glass, not just on the tongue. But this was not necessarily a bad thing — Chardonnay, of course, serves as the base of many top Champagnes, and I also recently tasted a delicious sparkling Moschofilero, one of my favorite Greek white varieties (you can read more about Moschofilero here).

The Sofos white had aromas of ripe apples, tropical fruit and tart lime, but it tasted quite dry, with floral overtones and a lemony finish. The bubbles felt tight and fizzy, helping the wine cut through the richness of some barley risotto with asparagus, peas, mushrooms and Parmesan. And the risotto enhanced the wine as well, making it feel rounder and deeper. Another excellent value for $12 a bottle.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it now, and doubtless I’ll say it again: There’s something exciting happening in Greece. Many people still regard Greece as a second-rate wine producer — read about the reaction of a Binny’s Beverage Depot sales clerk here — but those days are in the past. These Sofos wines provide yet more evidence that Greece is making delicious, fascinating and food-friendly wines. Most, like Sofos, are priced very affordably. Greek wine hasn’t been this good since the days of Pericles, and it’s only getting better.