Monthly Archives: February 2016

For many of us of a certain age, the word “Chianti” evokes fat bottles in straw baskets, bought not for the cheap wine inside so much as for the bottle, which made a great candle holder. Even today, that stereotype has yet to entirely disappear. Those in search of a great wine might pick up a Super Tuscan, perhaps, but I suspect fewer would look to a wine labeled Chianti Classico. Chianti may be Italy’s most famous wine region, but its name is not necessarily synonymous with fine wine.

The Italians have only themselves to blame for that, I’m afraid. In the 1960s, the government updated the DOC regulations for Chianti Classico, the traditional heart of Chianti and the source of most of the region’s best wines. The bureaucrats of the time decided that the best way to promote the economic health of Chianti Classico was to increase the quantity of wine produced and sold. Quality was of secondary concern. Whereas regulations previously allowed a certain percentage of the white Trebbiano and Malvasia grapes in the Sangiovese-based blend, now the rules required that the blend include 10 to 30 percent of the white grape juice. Fortunately, a number of growers decided to focus on quality instead, planting international varieties and selling what proved to be critically acclaimed (and expensive) wines as lowly Vino da Tavola.

The topsy-turvy situation was a bit of an embarrassment to regulators, of course, and finally in 1996, Chianti Classico became its own DOCG region as opposed to just a sub-region of Chianti. Yields were restricted, the required percentage of Sangiovese was increased, and the white-grape requirement was scrapped. But it wasn’t until 2006 — just ten years ago — that white grapes were banned from Chianti Classico, as the World Atlas of Wine explains.

I relate all this at length because I suspect that many people remain unaware of the recent changes in Chianti Classico. The wines now coming out of this region merit serious attention, a point that was driven home to me at a recent tasting with winemaker Andrea Cecchi.

I had expected to write only about his wines from Maremma, a region with far less fame than Chianti Classico, and therefore more appropriate for this blog dedicated to the unusual (you can read that post here). But the Chianti Classicos Andrea poured proved so surprisingly delicious, I felt bound to write about them.

His Chianti Classico is his winery’s best-seller in the United States, and after trying it, I can see why. A blend of 90% Sangiovese with the remainder composed of the traditional Colorino and Canaiolo varieties, the 2012 Cecchi Chianti Classico ($21) had a bright and cheerful aroma of red fruit, notably strawberries and cherries, and a hint of star anise. The wine filled my mouth with dark-red fruit, but like the other Cecchi wines I’d already tried, this Chianti Classico had distinct dryness to it. Some light spice in the middle led to some supple tannins on the finish. This was no rough-and-tumble Chianti. The wine had real elegance.

Those who prefer their wine with some oak should instead consider the 2009 Cecchi Chianti Classico Riserva di Famiglia ($41), which is produced only in favorable vintages. This wine, composed of 90% Sangiovese and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, sees 12 months of aging in barriques (small oak barrels). It smelled of fresh red fruit, but I also detected a raisin note in the aroma. The fruit felt really rich on my tongue, and thank goodness it did, because it had to balance the ample oak that followed. The tannins were wonderfully round, in spite of all that wood, and overall effect was quite refined. The oak notes made it an excellent pairing with some savory prosciutto, which also gave the fruit an extra shine.

Last, Andrea poured the 2011 vintage of his Super Tuscan, a blend of 60% Sangiovese from Chianti and 20% Petit Verdot, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Merlot from Maremma. The name, COEVO, which translates as “contemporary,” was chosen “because it conveys the value of time,” according to the tech sheet I received. I could tell from the aroma that this was a wine to be reckoned with. The deep, dark-fruit aroma had a striking freshness underneath, conveyed by a tobacco note.

I took a sip of the wine, and Andrea started saying something or other about it that was probably important, but I didn’t hear a word he said. It was just me and this absolutely gorgeous wine. The fruit was positively sumptuous — rich and round — and just enough spice perked up to keep it in balance. The wine moved seamlessly from one flavor to the next, culminating in the slow and steady development of exquisitely fine-grained tannins.

I can just picture it now, as I write this. What a shame I only had a small glass! I’ve never really considered spending $106 on a bottle of wine, but the 2011 COEVO might convince me to do just that.

The final time I went out for a Valentine’s Day dinner was about eight years ago. I haven’t given up celebrating Valentine’s Day, but I have given up going out to restaurants on that most overpriced of nights. The last straw was a miserable $80 prix-fixe dinner at the now deservedly shuttered Terragusto, a BYOB Italian restaurant in Chicago. The chef just phoned it in that night, and each course proved more banal than the last.

Because restaurants jack up their prices mercilessly on Valentine’s Day, I highly recommend enjoying a romantic dinner at home instead. Your beloved would surely appreciate it if you prepared a meal, even if it’s a simple one. Just put a little bouquet of flowers and a couple of candles on the table, and whatever food you make will look very romantic. And, fortunately, it’s really easy to pick out a wine to go with your Valentine’s Day dinner, regardless of its flavor profile: sparkling rosé. (Unless you’re making something spicy, in which case you should opt for something sweeter.)

Readers of a certain age may turn up their noses at sparkling rosé, having been scarred by Mateus in their youth. But nowadays, numerous vintners around the world produce rosé sparklers of real quality and interest, with fine bubbles and carefully balanced flavors. If you haven’t tried a fine sparkling rosé, I highly recommend picking one up, whether you plan on celebrating Valentine’s Day or not.

A rosé bubbly is admittedly a predictable choice for Valentine’s Day, which makes it important to select your sparkler with care. If you choose one from an unexpected wine region or made from an unexpected grape, it will show you put some thought into the wine, and didn’t just grab a bottle from the display of pink Asti by the entrance of the grocery store. I just tasted two unusual sparkling rosés myself, and I would certainly recommend picking up one or the other, depending on your taste.

François Montand Brut Rosé: The François Montand winery stands in France’s Jura region, a bit northwest of Geneva, because the winery’s founder fled to Jura during World War II. The Germans occupied Champagne, but Jura remained a free zone of France. His winery continues to make wines in the traditional Champagne method, méthode traditionnelle, which means that the wine’s second fermentation — the fermentation responsible for the bubbles — occurs in the bottle, not in a big tank. This more expensive method of sparkling wine production usually produces wines with a finer bead and more elegant mouthfeel.

François Montand’s Brut Rosé follows a very non-traditional, non-Champagne-approved route in terms of its composition, however. In Champagne, and in many other sparkling wines around the world, you find only Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. This sparkler blends Grenache, a grape found in many wines from the Rhône as well as Spain (where it’s known as Garnacha), and Cinsault, a red grape also popular in southern France, notably in Languedoc.

In Jura, these grapes likely ripen less than they do in southern France, ensuring that they retain enough acidity to make a fine sparkling wine (the wine also contains grapes from “additional vineyard sources outside the Jura”). In any case, the result is a delight, and the wine proved to be a hit at a recent tasting I held. A light salmon pink, it smelled of deliciously ripe watermelon and strawberries. The wine tasted fruity, spicy and essentially dry, with watermelon notes, ample lemon-orange acids and a finish of powdered candy. The bubbles, especially at the beginning, felt focused and prickly.

I would never have guessed, either from the pretty label or the taste, that this sparkler costs only about $15.

Flutes of Szigeti Pinot Noir Brut Rosé and François Montand Brut Rosé

Szigeti Pinot Noir Brut Rosé: If you or your loved one prefer your sparkling wine with just a light hint of sweetness, choose instead this well-crafted bubbly. What makes this sparkler unusual is not its composition of 100% Pinot Noir, nor its method of production, which is also méthode traditionnelle. This sparkler comes from Austria, a country known far better for its still Rieslings than sparkling Pinots.

Szigeti makes its home on the eastern side of the Neusiedlersee, a large and shallow lake that helps moderate the climate. “This is Austria’s hottest wine region,” explains The World Atlas of Wine, “so red grapes… ripen reliably each year, yet morning mists help keep their acidity in balance.”

I very much enjoyed Szigeti’s sparkling Grüner Veltliner, and when a wine representative offered me another bottle of Szigeti to try, I eagerly accepted. This wine proved more controversial at the tasting, with some people preferring the drier quality of the François Montand.

The aroma smelled rounder than that of the François Montand, with light notes of cherry and something a bit floral. A crisp apple taste quickly gave way to strawberries and cherries. Tart and lemony acids, in turn, supplanted the sweetness of the fruit, and the finish was dry. The bubbles were pleasantly small and sharp.

“It’s like a Sour Patch Kid,” exclaimed one taster, who found the sweet and sour character not to her taste. And indeed, both the fruit and the acidity were powerful. Another friend complained it was simply too sweet. Several other tasters, myself included, quite liked the wine, but then, I enjoy a little racy tartness in my sparklers.

The Szigeti costs $25, which seems like quite a reasonable splurge for Valentine’s Day. The wine has a certain voluptuousness, which, depending on your taste in wine and significant others, might be just the thing.

Note: These wines were samples, provided free of charge. 

Andrea Cecchi holding his Morellino di Scansano Riserva

I recently returned from a trip blessedly free from internet access to discover an aging invitation to have dinner and taste wines with Andrea Cecchi. My recent lack of connectivity suddenly seemed more like a curse. I scrambled to arrange a meeting, because Mr. Cecchi makes highly regarded wines in an obscure but very exciting region of Italy: Maremma.

Until the mid-20th century, Tuscany’s coast was better known for malaria and buttero (cowboys) than fine wine. But Mussolini drained the swamps, the cattle herds dwindled and the Marchese Mario Incisa della Rochetta planted Cabernet Sauvignon vines in Bolgheri. Now, Bolgheri is its own DOC and the home of Sassicaia, one of Italy’s most coveted wines.

But I don’t have $200 to spend on a bottle of Sassicaia. Instead, I focus instead on what ranks as one of Italy’s best red-wine values: Morellino di Scansano. The hill town of Scansano sits on high ground in Maremma, and the vineyards of Morellino (the local synonym for Sangiovese) reach as high as 1,500 feet above the nearby sea. “This is the Maremma’s classic Sangiovese zone,” according to The World Atlas of Wine, and Italy seems to agree. In 2009, Morellino di Scansano was elevated from its DOC classification to DOCG, the most most restrictive and (theoretically) highest-quality designation in Italy’s wine classification system.

In 1996, Andrea Cecchi’s father bought 360 acres of Maremma vineyards, expanding his wine company out of Chianti Classico, its home base since the late 19th century. He called his new wines “La Mora,” in honor of the black-skinned horses for which Maremma was once famous, Andrea explained, indicating the horse-head silhouettes on the labels.

We talked about measures the winery takes to improve sustainability and how they continue to innovate, working to make even the most incremental of improvements, knowing that enough small steps forward eventually lead to great leaps in quality. In the not-so-distant past, the fashion was to amp up the extraction and oak flavors. Now, the pendulum has swung the other direction, and Andrea, like many other top winemakers these days, seeks to emphasize the quality and purity of the fruit. It all sounded good, but did it translate into delicious wine?

I smelled the 2013 “La Mora” Morellino di Scansano. It had a lovely rich aroma of red cherry fruit and violets. This wine sees no oak. “I want it to be very perfect, clean, into the bottle,” Andrea explained, and he succeeded in that effort. The wine started with ample dark cherry fruit before moving to a brief perk of white-pepper spice, admirably round tannins and a clean, dry finish. It worked well with some tomato and basil bruschetta, becoming a bit bigger and spicier. A very good value for $23 a bottle.

We also tried the 2011 “La Mora” Morellino di Scansano Riserva, aged 12 to 14 months in French oak barriques composed of 40% new wood (older barrels impart less oak flavor). I felt especially excited to try this wine, because only 10% of Morellino di Scansano is riserva. I loved its rich dark-chocolate and cherry aroma overlaid with a note of black licorice. On my palate, the cherry fruit felt cool and ripe, undergirded by mocha notes and well-integrated tannins. Like with the first Morellino, this example exhibited a general undertone of dryness — the wine didn’t feel juicy or jammy. This wine is pricier at $40 a bottle, but if you have that money to spend, you won’t regret spending it on this absolutely delightful riserva.

Maremma can produce notable whites as well, as demonstrated by the 2014 “La Mora” Maremma Vermentino Andrea presented. Demand for wines made from this indigenous grape far outstrips supply, according to The Oxford Companion to Wine, and I can understand why. This Vermentino smelled fresh and green, with just a touch of creaminess to it. A lengthy amount of time in contact with the yeast gave this wine a wonderfully even keel and elegant mouthfeel. Ripe fruit expanded on the palate, but taut acids underneath buoyed it up without becoming intrusive or overly tart. I also liked the dry, mineral finish. Many Italian whites require food to really appreciate them, but this wine worked just as beautifully all on its own. Very classy, and very well-priced at $20 a bottle.

Honestly, I had expected to end my writing about Andrea Cecchi’s wines here, because though he planned on presenting some Chiantis, they hardly qualified as obscure. But these Chiantis did turn out to be unusual, and well-deserving of an upcoming post all their own.

Note: The tastes of these wines were provided free of charge.

Hawaii does not immediately spring to mind when one thinks of craft distilling, beer brewing or (for heaven’s sake) winemaking. But this remote little archipelago in the middle of the Pacific can hold its own on all counts, though, admittedly, Maui doesn’t have much chance of becoming the next Napa.

In between snorkeling and hikes in the jungle on my recent Hawaiian sojourn, I managed to find time for a drink or two as well, and I discovered more than one delightful tipple. Here are my favorites:

NV Maui Wine “Maui Blanc” Pineapple Wine

I knew I couldn’t leave Hawaii without at least trying some pineapple wine, and when I spotted a bottle on sale for $14 at a shop in Lahaina, I snapped it up. The wine has no vintage because MauiWine crushes Maui Gold pineapples monthly. The fruit varies in ripeness each month, which requires the winemakers to blend juice from different harvests in order to maintain a consistent product.

But consistent or not, is the product worth drinking? The words “pineapple wine” don’t likely inspire confidence in most readers of this blog. I opened the bottle as our little cruise boat floated just off the Maui coast, with the expectation that the wine would be too syrupy-sweet to drink more than a few sips.

The aroma, not surprisingly, was redolent of pineapple, but there was also something a little tart in there, like lime. It tasted, of course, like pineapple, but that wasn’t the end of the story. Some orangey acids lent the wine some balance, and the finish felt dry. At the back of my throat, I could feel some ginger/white-pepper spice. The wine was quite drinkable indeed! I finished my glass with no trouble.

It’s true that the wine does not qualify as “complex,” and I would have preferred some more acidity. Nevertheless, I enjoyed my glass of pineapple wine, and it certainly felt fun to drink it as the moon began to rise over Maui.

Maui Brewing Co. beers on tap

I don’t usually write about beer, but not because I don’t like it. I love beer, in fact. It almost never appears on this blog because I want at least one beverage in my life that’s always just fun — a beverage which I can drink without worrying about whether I should be taking notes.

And though I didn’t take notes on my Maui Brewing Co. Coconut Porter, I remember it quite clearly. This dark beer tasted rich and meaty, with more coffee flavor than coconut. The coconut appeared just as a whisper at the end.

I felt surprised that coconut didn’t come more to the fore, but I realized that it made perfect sense. Really, I had no interest in a coconut beer. A porter with a reminder of coconut on the finish, however, proved to be quite delicious and more than a gimmick. I wouldn’t hesitate to order it again.

Koloa Kaua’i Dark Hawaiian Rum

It only makes sense for Hawaii to make rum, considering the state’s success growing sugar cane. According to the Koloa distillery’s website, “Koloa Plantation and Mill’s first harvest in 1837 produced two tons of raw sugar. Talking story with old timers reveals that rum production began around this time.” Based on the island of Kaua’i, the distillery started operation in its current incarnation in 2008, bottling its first rum in 2009.

In addition to sugar cane juice, the distillery makes use of “Pure mountain rainwater from Mt. Wai’ale’ale and the nearby mountain peaks,” which is “slowly filtered through volcanic strata before finally reaching vast underground aquifers.”

I certainly liked how the dark rum turned out. I tried it on the rocks with no mixers. It had an aroma of vanilla and molasses, and it felt quite smooth on the palate, with no alcoholic burn. I detected flavors of vanilla, maple and some wood, and underneath it all was an unexpected sense of dryness. Some spice hit the back of my throat at the end.

Hawaiian bars surely use this rum most often in cocktails, but it tasted delightful over ice, and it would make a fine tropical digestif.

Mauna Kea Mule cocktail made with Pau Vodka

The Mauna Kea Beach Hotel’s Copper Bar struck me as the perfect place to try a Mauna Kea Mule, served in a traditional copper mug. Hawaiian Pau Vodka, distilled from Maui pineapples, served as the base of this superlative cocktail, which also included house-made ginger beer, fresh lime juice, soda water and a dash of bitters, garnished with lime wedges and a massive chunk of candied ginger.

It tasted floral, as home-brewed ginger beer often does, and spicy and just a little tart, with the flavors balancing each other admirably. I loved it, and good gracious, the setting — overlooking an unspoiled palm-lined beach on the Big Island — could hardly have been lovelier.