Odd Bacchus

So far I have yet to encounter any Colombian wine, but I haven’t felt especially deprived. The Colombian cocktail scene, at least in Bogotá and Cartagena, turns out to be quite sophisticated. Mixologists have a bit of an advantage here, with an array of delicious Colombian fruits at their disposal that we in the U.S. can only dream about.

One of my favorites so far is corozo, a red berry which on its own tastes somewhere between a blackberry and a cranberry. It’s delicious, and I was excited to see it appear in a drink on the cocktail menu of Leo Cocina y Cava, a world-class Bogotá restaurant. Its Corozo cocktail contains Absolut Kurant, Cointreau, lemon juice and corozo juice, making it akin to a Cosmopolitan (also on Leo Cocina y Cava’s menu, made with Absolut Citron).

I felt a little skeptical about the Kurant, which I suspected would either overpower or be overpowered by the corozo, since both have pronounced berry flavors. My concerns weren’t assuaged when the drink arrived with the consistency of a loose slushie. The texture of the drink felt unbalanced, with not enough citrus to round out the vodka. The Kurant really did take over, it seemed. But once the ice melted, the sharp edges of the cocktail wore away and it became something I actually enjoyed consuming. The tart corozo came more to the fore, and the Absolut Kurant lost some of its punch.

Although this cocktail proved to be something of a mixed bag, I felt sure corozo could make a drink sing. Now, off to find a bartender who can perform a better balancing act.

In preparation for my upcoming trip south, I consulted my trusty World Atlas of Wine, which contains precisely zero information about Colombia. The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia was scarcely better, mentioning the country just once, in a table, noting that it has approximately 1,500 hectares (about 3,700 acres) dedicated to vineyards, in contrast to Argentina’s vast 207,985 hectares.

None of this was a great shock — Colombia, after all, won’t win a Ms. Fancy Wine South America pageant. Of my research tomes, only the ever-comprehensive Oxford Companion to Wine offered any prose about the country. Only in the 1990s, it says, did Colombia start producing wine from vinifera grapes in any measurable amounts. Production, such as it is, centers in the country’s southeast, away from the tourist centers of Cartagena and Bogotá.

I was most interested to read that vines must be annually de-leafed by hand, a project which temperate-climate winemakers would doubtless find baffling. Why strip the leaves of perfectly healthy grape vines? Defoliating the plants forces them into a state of dormancy normally induced by winter a season which seldom comes to these equatorial vineyards. No dormancy, no fruit.

I hope to find one or two examples of Colombian wines to try out, otherwise I suppose I’ll be relegated to the local aguardiente. But I hear of a restaurant on the island of Providencia that makes its own tamarind wine, and after being beaten down by this relentless cold and snow, the idea of sipping some tamarind wine by the sea is all that’s keeping me from huddling under my down comforter until spring.

Michel with Château Bastor-Lamontagne

When wine drinkers see the word “Bordeaux,” most think of great reds, and very expensive ones at that. Especially in the wake of the widely heralded 2009 and 2010 vintages, demand for top red Bordeaux has never been higher. But sweet white wines are hardly as fashionable, especially in the United States, where we like our steaks beefy and our wines even beefier.

The softer demand for sweet white wines results in softer prices, which means that some of the greatest wines of Bordeaux are affordable for you and me. Instead of St-Estèphe and Paulliac, we need to look for Sauternes and Barsac. These wines need not be relegated to foie gras and dessert pairings — many have the acids and freshness to pair well with Thai and Indian dishes, which can be difficult to match with something drier.

But really, you may wonder, are the sweet wines of Sauternes and Barsac actually all that special? At the recent Grands Crus de Bordeaux tasting in Chicago, I tried several remarkable Sauternes, including one with a laser-like beam of acids and minerals shooting through a gloriously rich nectar of honeyed fruit. That’s the 2011 Château Bastor-Lamontagne. It startled me, this wine, with its sumptuous flavor and pristine clarity, and I became even more startled when I learned the price: $30-$40 a bottle. Quite a difference from the stratospheric sums red Bordeaux wines fetch nowadays.

The price seems even more shocking when one takes into consideration the incredible amount of work and luck that goes into a Sauternes or a Barsac (or a Preignac or a Fargues, all of which can be classified as Sauternes, the term I will henceforth use to refer to the entire area).

The vineyards of Sauternes grow near the junction of two rivers, the key to their success. The Oxford Companion to Wine explains:

When, in autumn, the cool spring-fed Ciron waters flow into the warmer tidal Garonne, evening mists envelop the vineyards until late morning the following day, when the sun, if it shines, burns the mist away. This moist atmosphere encourages Botrytis cinerea, a fungus that attacks the grapes and causes them to shrivel and rot.

Shriveled, rotted grapes sound pretty terrible, but this “Noble Rot” reduces the water content of the grapes, concentrating the sugars. The fungus also chemically alters the grapes in many favorable ways, increasing aromas and complexity in a manner impossible to replicate by simply letting water evaporate from the grapes or pressed juice.

Noble Rot does not usually affect a vineyard evenly, however, which means the châteaux most dedicated to quality must pick grapes by hand, picking only the bunches — or indeed only the individual grapes — that have rotted enough. In some unfortunate years, there can be so little Noble Rot that some châteaux simply skip the vintage altogether and hope for better conditions next time. As you might imagine, yields even in the best years tend to be quite low.

Fortunately, 2011 happened to be a particularly good year for Sauternes, as well as dry white Bordeaux wines (it was uneven for reds). This assertion was strongly supported by the tasting I attended, where the Sauternes ranged from memorable to absolutely astounding. There wasn’t a single dud, and believe me, I tried them all.

Even so, it pays to not go for the least-expensive Sauternes you can find. Some châteaux are more painstaking in their harvesting and winemaking than others. Ask your wine shop for a recommendation, or consider one of the Sauternes below:

2011 Château Suduiraut: This Preignac-based château ranks as a Premier Cru Classé, and no wonder — its vineyard adjoins that of the legendary Château d’Yquem. According to Directeur Technique Pierre Montégut, Suduiraut’s blend of 92% Sémillon and 8% Sauvignon Blanc has more freshness than Yquem, because whereas Yquem has some clay in its soil, Suduiraut has only gravel. And indeed, underneath the classic honeyed aroma, I detected a shaft of stone. The wine tasted very rich at first, but tightly focused gingery spice and broad orangey acids gave it admirable balance.

2011 Château La Tour Blanche: State-owned La Tour Blanche is one of Sauternes’ most important châteaux, not only because it produces excellent wines but because it serves as a school for the next generation of Sauternes’ vintners. But Sales Manager Didier Fréchinet assured me that the wine was crafted by experts, not students, and I have no reason to doubt his claim. La Tour Blanche’s honeyed white-fruit aroma had an appealingly intriguing undertone of something burnt. There was that wonderfully lush richness, but this lithe wine moved across the palate with impressive lightness, finishing fresh and focused with white-pepper spice. La Tour Blanche exemplified what I love about Sauternes — it manages the seemingly impossible feat of tasting deeply rich and fresh and lively all at once.

2011 Château Coutet: Aline Baly, who manages this Premier Cru Classé estate in Barsac with her uncle, related that Coutet’s first recorded vintage dates back to 1643, and that until the 1920’s, M. Lur-Saluces had his horse barn on the property (a connection with Yquem’s Lur-Saluces family is gold in Sauternes). The classic honeyed fruit Sauternes aroma had enticing orange notes and a pleasing waft of salinity. The wine tasted wonderfully lush, its richness leavened with some herbaceousness, notes of bitter orange and eye-poppingly zesty acids. Delicious. The charming Baly remarked, “As Anthony Giglio says, acids are the Zamboni of the palate,” and indeed they are!

Didier Fréchinet of La Tour Blanche

2011 Château de Rayne-Vigneau: Situated between La Tour Blanche and Lafaurie-Peyraguey (see below), this Sauternes tasted as fresh as a dewy spring morning. It had a surprisingly green aroma, and hovering over the rich, spicy flavors was something aromatic and exotic, a whisper of something like frankincense. 

2011 Château de Fargues: The ancestral home of the Lur-Saluces family, Château de Fargues uses “essentially the same fastidious methods as Yquem,” according to The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia, an assertion confirmed by Directeur Général Eudes d’Orleans. This barrel sample (it won’t be bottled until June) felt incredibly plump, with notes of roasted peaches and minerals. It developed very slowly and deliberately on the palate, the sumptuous texture balanced by big, orangey acids.

2011 Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey: This château mixes in 1% of Muscadet in with the traditional Sauternes blend of Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc. It must make a difference; a delightful freshness was overlayed on top of the dark honey aroma, and the wine positively sparkled on the tongue. The zestiest acids I’d experienced so far made this wine feel incredibly lively and bright, in spite of its deep, deep richness.

2011 Château Bastor-Lamontagne: As I described above, this Sauternes was dazzling. It had a fresh and fruity honeysuckle aroma with nothing heavy about it. There was the rich and opulent character one expects from a fine Sauternes, but here, a rocket of minerality and acids shot right through the middle with electrifying focus. It rang like a bell; it was a taut violin string plucked in a clear pool of nectar. I took notes on this exquisite wine, but it was unnecessary — there is no chance I’ll ever forget the 2011 Bastor-Lamontagne. This château may not be Sauternes’ most famous or highly classed, but in 2011 at least, Bastor-Lamontagne crafted a thing of invigorating beauty.

Grands Crus de Bordeaux Tasting

Much to my surprise and delight, I received an invitation to attend the Grands Crus de Bordeaux tasting held here in Chicago at the Drake Hotel. You may be wondering what Bordeaux wines could possibly be considered unusual or obscure. Bordeaux is, after all, perhaps the most famous wine region in the world, with wines in such demand that top bottles can infamously cost more than $1,000 each. Bordeaux was already famous when Thomas Jefferson traveled through the region, purchasing wine to stock his cellars at Monticello. Indeed, the oldest château, Pape-Clément, has been producing wine under that name continuously since 1305.

I wondered what else could be said about the wines of Bordeaux, and I also wondered how a writer who has “Dedicated to Drinking the Unusual and the Obscure” on his business card would be received by the grape juice grandees at this tasting. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for them to regard this blog as a direct reaction to overpriced wines and the culture of snobbery they engender. And where, stereotypically, would this culture flower more fully than in Bordeaux?

But Bordeaux is no monolith, and neither are its winemakers. In fact, almost everyone at the tasting was at the very least quite cordial, and most seemed very pleased to meet me. Perhaps it was because I was genuinely interested in learning more about the wines — many people walked up to the tasting tables, held out their glasses with barely a word, and retreated to taste the wines with their friends or colleagues. I observed one woman who repeatedly charged up to a table of dump buckets, emptied her excess wine and literally ran back to the tasting tables. I can’t imagine that she had too many enlightening conversations.

I learned quite a bit from my chats with the winery representatives, especially those from unfamous châteaux. I approached one winery I had in my notes as a Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel, but the representative corrected me. “In the last classification, we became just Cru Bourgeois.”

“Oh that’s strange,” I replied. “I read in The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia that your wines are some of the best values in the Médoc.”

“Well, the last time we didn’t really try,” he answered, rather cryptically. “The classification, eh…” He trailed off.

“I’m sure the classification doesn’t always reflect reality, does it,” I ventured. “I mean, I’m sure there are a lot of powerful interests who influence the classification.”

He simply raised his eyebrows at that. Bordeaux classifications, even were they entirely free from political influences, would still be quite confusing and only a rough gauge of quality. Time and time again, Sotheby’s writes of châteaux performing well above their classifications (and occasionally of châteaux resting on past laurels). More confusing for the American wine consumer, different parts of Bordeaux use different classification vocabularies, which, of course, are also different from the classification system of Burgundy and other regions of France. You might understandably feel excited to find a low price on a grandiosely named St-Émillon grand cru, for example. After all, a good deal on a grand cru from Burgundy would be exciting indeed. But a St-Émillon grand cru is just one step up from the most basic St-Émillon.

Another winery representative and I chatted about his wine, which turned out to be one of my very favorites of the entire tasting. I remarked that it was an incredible value for the price. He leaned in close to me, and said, “You know, to be perfectly honest, I never buy wines that cost more than 50 or 60 euro. That’s maybe $100? Anything that costs more than that is bull****. When you buy wines,” he gestured towards the room, “that cost $300 or $800, you are not buying the wine. You are buying the label. I want to buy only the wine.” This felt like a shocking admission from a winery representative standing in the middle of a Grands Crus de Bordeaux tasting.

So classification and price are not necessarily true indicators of value in Bordeaux. One final additional complicating factor is vintage. In Bordeaux, unlike in Napa, the quality of the vintage can vary radically from year to year, and worse, the vintage can be wonderful for certain châteaux and dire for others. In 2011, for example, was inconsistent for red wines but excellent for white and sweet wines.

Bordeaux, therefore, defies broad generalizations. I’m tempted to throw up my hands and say the heck with it, I’m not buying anything from Bordeaux. But what a loss that would be. Bordeaux, for all its inconsistencies and wild prices, produces all sorts of thoroughly delicious wines. These are wines that have long set viticultural standards around the world. To ignore them would be to deny yourself great pleasure. It pays to learn a little about Bordeaux and shop as an educated consumer.

If you’ve made it this far in this blog post, you are likely willing to do a little more reading on the subject. A well-written reference book like The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia can be a wonderful resource, describing the various Bordeaux sub-regions, classification systems and notable châteaux in engaging, opinionated prose. Having an overview of how the region is organized is invaluable; you’ll get an immediate sense of which Bordeaux wines are most likely to align with your palate. A trusted wine shop where you can turn for advice is equally invaluable. Learn the outlines of the classification systems so that you won’t be suckered in by grands crus that aren’t necessarily so grand. Don’t bother with anything that costs more than $100 (not usually a problem for me in any case). Get a sense of which vintages in the last five to ten years were excellent (2005, 2009, 2010), and look for more basic wines from these years.

Learning about the vagaries of Bordeaux — red, white and sweet — can actually be great fun. There are Bordeaux wines out there for every kind of palate, and those are wines worth finding. A small amount of reading about the region will pay significant dividends when you’re faced with a large Bordeaux section at the liquor store. Your efforts will be repaid with wines rich in fruit, strong with structure and well-balanced with focused acids and minerals.

And just because it’s Bordeaux, don’t assume it isn’t unusual. The sweet wines of Barsac and Preignac and the elegant dry whites of Pessac-Léognan have little popularity or name recognition in this country. But they deserve it, as I’ll describe in some upcoming posts.