Dave McIntyre's WineLine

The Locavore/Locapour Movement Loses A Star

I opened a special bottle the other night: Red Newt Cellars Cabernet Franc 2008, from Glacier Ridge Vineyards in the Finger Lakes. It was everything an Eastern U.S. cab franc should be. It had vibrant medium-deep color, cherry fruit spiced with white pepper and clove and a sweet-ripe finish that put the lie to the complaint that the Eastern part of this country can’t ripen wine grapes. As we gulped the wine all too fast, it developed an interesting note of clove and fenugreek, and while it wasn’t particularly tannic, I was aware that by drinking it now, we were depriving it of a fruitful future.

Debra Whiting of Red Newt Cellars & Bistro pioneered the locavore movement in the Finger Lakes. (Red Newt Cellars)

Somehow that seemed appropriate. I had chosen the wine in honor of Dave and Debra Whiting, the husband-and-wife team behind Red Newt Cellars and Bistro in Hector, N.Y., on the southeast side of Seneca Lake. Since starting “the Newt” in 1999, David had become one of the Finger Lakes’ top winemakers and Debra the region’s leading chef, championing the “locavore” movement by featuring ingredients from nearby farms. She is widely credited with sparking the restaurant revolution in the Finger Lakes wine country, which had been dependent on fast food.

Sadly, Dave and Debra Whiting were in a tragic car accident on June 30 on the New York State Thruway as they were returning home from visiting friends and family in Vermont. Deb, 52, was killed. Dave, 47, suffered lacerations and has reportedly been released from the hospital. A passenger in the other car involved in the accident was also hospitalized with lacerations.

I met Dave and Deb Whiting a few times over the years, not enough to call them friends but certainly enough to become a fan. I cheered earlier this year when Red Newt wines became available in the Washington area. I also attended a Riesling retrospective dinner at the Bistro in May 2010 while judging a wine competition in Watkins Glen, and I had the pleasure of visiting with them both. Deb was relaxed, enjoying the dinner with her customers rather than slaving in the kitchen, a show of confidence in her staff. Talking to them, I could sense the source of their appeal: These were honest people, with nothing to hide but lots to share.

But enough from me. Here are tributes from people who knew Deb Whiting much better.

“Her influence in transforming the Finger Lakes food scene is comparable to that of Dr. Konstantin Frank on the wine side,” wrote Jim Trezise, president of the New York Wine & Grape Foundation, in his weekly e-mail newsletter. “Both combined vision, passion and commitment to revolutionize an industry and a region.... Today the Finger Lakes is widely recognized as one of the finest wine country destinations in the world, in large part because the quality of the food has caught up to the wine. That is the legacy of Deb Whiting.”

Evan Dawson, managing editor of NewYorkCorkReport.com, wrote: “Deb Whiting shared more in common with her hero Alice Waters than she was willing to let on. Waters pioneered a local food movement in California; Whiting practically invented the local food movement in the Finger Lakes. She was proudly working with local agriculture long before it became a national trend, long before ‘local’ became an effective marketing term.

“But give Deb credit for two things: First, she didn’t think the local food movement was a fad, but instead a permanent shift in values. Second, she didn’t give a damn if she were wrong about that, because she was going to keep right on serving local food.

“‘This isn’t a trend,’ she said on a summer’s day in 2008. ‘People understand that local food is often better food, and it’s better for them, and it’s clearly better for the local economy. There’s too much going for the local food movement to see it fade away. It’s here, and it’s only going to get stronger.’”

With the passing of Deb Whiting, the locavore/locapour movement has lost a champion.

(This post appeared on The Washington Post's All We Can Eat food blog on July 7.)

Virginia and Maryland Decriminalize Us! WooHoo!

Wine lovers in Virginia and Maryland can come out of the shadows this Friday when it becomes legal to do the things we’ve been doing all along.

Virginia’s corkage law takes effect on July 1, making it legal for restaurants to allow patrons to bring their own wine. If you were unaware that Virginia banned BYOB at licensed restaurants, you may be forgiven. The law had never really been enforced, as this quote from Richmond.com illustrates:

According to Phillip Bogenberger of the Virginia ABC, “[there have been no] instances where [ABC has] issued citations for violations of the law prohibiting bringing in wine from outside restaurants.”

Virginia ABC seems to like the new law. The agency even created a Facebook page for it. But before you pack your [yellow tail] and head to Restaurant Eve, there are some things you should know:

Well OK, you may BYO, but maybe not THIS much ...

The law is voluntary. Restaurants may let you bring in your own wine, but they don’t have to.

Restaurants may charge a fee per bottle, and the law does not set a limit on that fee. (The District of Columbia limits corkage to $25 per bottle, though that doesn’t seem to be enforced, either.)

There’s an etiquette to corkage, ably spelled out by Virginia blogger Frank Morgan at DrinkWhatYouLike.com. The main points:

* Call the restaurant to see if managers will welcome your bottle and ask their fee

* Don’t bring a wine that’s on their list

* Offer the sommelier or your server a taste of that special bottle from your collection.

Across the Potomac, Maryland diners are still not allowed to take their own wine to restaurants; the Maryland legislature blocked an effort to allow that this year. But lawmakers did approve direct shipping, which means we can have bottles shipped from out-of-state wineries straight to our homes. Starting Friday, when the law takes effect, we will no longer need to make furtive trips across the border to retrieve a coveted case delivered to a friend’s house (and pay the exorbitant one-bottle “buddy tax”). No more “personal deliveries” to our offices in the District, either. And no more UPS shipments from Napa County prominently marked, “OLIVE OIL”.

There won’t be a flood of deliveries right away, of course, as wineries must apply for permits to send bottles to Maryland residents. The comptroller’s office posted permit applications online this month, and about a dozen permits have been issued already, with more in the works, according to Kevin Atticks, executive director of the Maryland Wineries Association. ShipCompliant, a firm that helps wineries navigate the morass of state regulations on shipping, posted more information about the Maryland permits on its blog.

Parker: Will Bordeaux Alienate the U.S. Market?

A roundup of recent news from the world of wine:

* Bordeaux is in the throes of its annual frenzy of futures (or en primeur) sales as chateaux, buoyed by rave reviews from journalists, release the prices for their 2010s. No surprise, perhaps, that many prices are up substantially from the record levels set in 2009. The increases even have uber-critic Robert Parker complaining to the Agence France-Presse that the prices are getting out of hand. Parker’s love of Bordeaux has helped fuel the rise in prices, but he warned of a “big, big crisis” if the trend continues.

“Bordeaux is the epicenter of the greatest wines,” he told AFP. “I hate to see the image damaged by the fact people tend to think it’s too expensive.” He said Bordeaux is focusing too much on the demand for fine wines in Asia and risks alienating the American market. What do the French say to such criticism? Foreign minister (and Bordeaux mayor) Alain Juppe chalks it up to the market and calls the wines “good value.”

* Speaking of the American market, Decanter.com (the Web site of the leading British wine magazine) reports that U.S. retailers are balking at the high prices for the 2010 futures. Elliott Staren of Wide World of Wines in Glover Park is quoted as saying, “We are buying so far, but being much more selective.” A New York retailer says the top wines will sell at any price but worries about “mid-range” Bordeaux, “where wines that used to be $50-60 a few years ago now come out between $100-120.” That’s “mid-range”? Wow — further evidence that the fine-wine market is out of touch with reality or real people.

* That Asian market is no myth. Decanter.com also reported last week that a new store set to open in Taipei, Taiwan, will sell only first-growth Bordeaux (plus a few other chateaux that have achieved cult status), with vintages dating from 1945 to 2000. Sounds like a niche market, but a total of 10 such stores are planned for cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo by the end of this year. New York and London will bring up the rear next year. And this week, Decanter made its own play for the Asian market, posting an online guide to the 2010 Bordeaux vintage in Chinese.

* Meanwhile, the French wine culture seems to be fading. A new study shows that French wine consumption has dropped by 3 billion bottles over two generations, to just 4 billion bottles a year, according to The Telegraph. That makes for one bottle per week for each French adult, the laggards. More tellingly, younger French drinkers are less inclined to savor a bottle over a meal while reminiscing about the good ol' days, and prefer to drink socially with friends. And to add insult to injury, ShankenNewsDaily.com reported that U.S. wine consumption is set to eclipse that of France in 2012. We have a big population advantage, of course - France's per capita wine consumption was 46.07 liters in 2010, compared to a paltry 8.7 liters for Americans. But overall, we bought 307 million cases of wine last year, while France consumed 321 million cases. The trend lines show U.S. consumption ascendant.

(Photo: eRobertParker.com)

Shades of Green

Gather a few winegrowers together and ask them about their craft, and you’re likely to hear some thought-provoking answers. Such was the case earlier this month when I moderated a panel discussion on “green” winemaking at the National Museum of Natural History, part of the Smithsonian’s annual “Demystifying Seafood: The Ocean and Its Bounty” event.

Since any good food event requires wine, the museum partnered with the Rhone Rangers, an association of 150 U.S. wineries that grow grapes traditional to the Rhone Valley in France - grenache, syrah, mourvedre and other reds, plus viognier, roussanne, marsanne and grenache blanc among the whites. I moderated a panel discussion and tasting of “green rangers” - Phillip Hart of AmByth Estate in Paso Robles; Pam Harter of Rocca Family Vineyards in Napa; Steve Beckman of Beckman Vineyards, Peter Stolpman of Stolpman Vineyards, and Ken Volk of Kenneth Volk Vineyards in Santa Barbara County.

The discussion focused on sustainable, organic and biodynamic viticulture, three schools of “green” winemaking with sometimes dramatic differences. There were hints of contention: Stolpman and Beckman, who are neighbors in Santa Barbara County’s Ballard Canyon, joked of shared water tables and drifting sprays. But the winegrowers shared an obvious and heart-felt dedication to producing world-class wines in a manner that preserves their small parcel of the Earth.

Here’s some of what they had to say:

“We’re all family owned vineyards, were not corporate,” Stolpman said. “We don’t have to answer to quarterly profits or losses. For me to be a boutique winery operation, there’s no reason not to farm organically. Yes, this year I could have saved money buying Roundup to kill all the weeds, I could go out and poison all the varmints in the vineyard and have an easier time. But the thing about fine wine is there is no cutting corners. I think the use of chemicals is a modern, convenient way to make life easier and more profitable, not to make better wine.”

And about those chemicals, Hart, who farms biodynamically and makes “natural” wines (in his case, foot-trodden, fermented with indigenous yeasts, and bottled without added sulfites), had this to say: “If you are a chemical farmer, then you are putting chemicals on your crops, and then we are ingesting them. In our current society we’re starting to realize that may be having some influence on our bodies. If you’re a good farmer or a biodynamic farmer, then those chemicals aren’t going on your crops and they aren’t going inside you. I think that’s pretty vital.”

“Grapes have an ability to absorb what’s around them,” agreed Beckman, who also farms his vineyards according to biodynamic philosophies. “Smoke taint, for instance, which has been a problem in California and Australia. If you look at the list of vegetables and fruits that you should wash thoroughly, grapes are on that list.”

“And with Australian wines, that eucalyptus flavor we like comes from eucalyptus trees that grow around the vineyard,” Hart said. “That’s not direct absorption. It makes you think.”

Rocca Family Vineyards has about 30 acres under vine in Napa County, and pays a minimum of $50,000 a year to maintain organic certification, Pam Harter said. “We do it because we think it’s the right thing for our families, our vines and our wines - it’s not making us money. But when I go out to the a vineyard that’s farmed organically or biodynamically, it feels alive. It’s a totally different feeling in those vineyards.”

Ken Volk is a major proponent of sustainable farming, which incorporates some of the principles of organics and biodynamics without the strictures involved in certification. There are several sustainability programs for wineries, including one developed by The Wine Institute, the California industry association.

“Sustainability is about how to farm your vineyard in a way that future generations can benefit,” Volk said. “It comes down to the ‘three E’s’ - environmentally sound, economically feasible, and socially equitable.”

“Economically feasible” means flexibility to do what’s necessary when trouble hits.
“The reality is there are times when you may be reliant on synthetic chemicals, pesticides, to control things,” he said. “Last year because of the weather we had, there was more acreage coming out of organic certification than any year in the past decade. People were responding to the climate they were faced with.”

(This article was published June 22 in The Washington Post. Also, the subsequent food and wine tasting event included three Virginia wineries that are members of Rhone Rangers: Tarara Vineyards, Veritas Vineyards, and Delaplane Cellars.)

 

The panel, from left to right: Phil Hart (obscured), Steve Beckman, Peter Stolpman, Pam Harter, Ken Volk and well, some other guy. Photos: Kevin Allen, for the Smithsonian.

Regional Wines Showcased in DC

 

Local and regional wines were in the spotlight at the Masters of Food and Wine event early this month. It was the Park Hyatt Washington’s second time participating in this event, which occurs throughout the year at several of the hotel chain’s outposts around the world.

The hotel’s beverage director, German Broggi, who came to the District last summer, has developed an entire page of Virginia wines for the Park Hyatt’s restaurant, Blue Duck Tavern, and he made sure local vintners were well represented in the three-day event.

The opening reception on Blue Duck’s small patio along 24th Street NW on June 2 (luckily, before our heatwave began) was crowded as partygoers met and mingled with Jeff White of Glen Manor Vineyards, Emily Pelton of Veritas, Jason Burrus of Rappahannock Cellars, and Rachel Martin of Boxwood — three of Virginia’s top wineries. Barboursville’s Luca Paschina held court among the crowd in advance of a winemaker’s dinner he hosted later that evening. 

The Masters event was not entirely local, of course. Such famous names as Caymus, Duckhorn and Jordan were represented. One enthusiastic fan gushed to me after stopping at Alma Rosa’s table, “Oh my gosh, that’s Richard Sanford! He’s a pioneer!”(Sanford planted the first pinot noir vines in the Santa Rita Hills area of Santa Barbara County back in the 1970s.)

At the Barboursville dinner, Paschina poured two vintages of his viognier reserve to support his belief that viognier ages well and should not be consumed too young. The 2002 was rich and unctuous and deep golden in color, but I still preferred the crisper, fresher 2009, which showed the flowery aromas and austere structure that makes Barboursville one of my favorite viogniers year after year. Perhaps nine years is a little too long for aging it, but the richness of the 2002 did pair nicely with chef Brian McBride’s lobster dish. (I also attended the wonderful America Farm to Table dinner the next night, with guest chef Brian Huston from The Publican in Chicago. The kitchen staff in Blue Duck Tavern was magnificent both nights.)

The highlight wine of the evening, however, was the Octagon, Barboursville’s signature wine. This merlot-based Bordeaux blend was showing beautifully in the 2001 and 2006 vintages, bolstering Paschina’s argument that Virginia can consistently produce world-class wine.

Other local wines shared the spotlight on Friday. After a brief appearance on News Channel 8’s “Let’s Talk Live” (see above) that morning, I conducted a small tasting of 10 Virginia and Maryland wines for about a dozen people at the Park Hyatt. The idea was to showcase some of the region’s best wines in a setting more congenial than the typical summer wine festival — after all, barrel-fermented anything doesn’t taste very good in 100-degree heat. (The link is to a writeup of the tasting on BrightestYoungThings.com, which definitely marks a first for me.)

My guests enjoyed some unusual wines, such as the Chester Gap 2009 Petit Manseng, as well as more traditional offerings, such as Black Ankle Vineyards’s excellent 2008 Bordeaux blend called Crumbling Rock, or Michael Shaps’s stunning 2007 Cabernet Franc. The tasting ended with a bang — the Boxwood Winery 2007 Topiary, a 50-50 blend of merlot and cabernet franc that may be hard to find retail now but should still be on some restaurant wine lists. If you can find it, don’t pass it up. The Topiary is drinking beautifully.

Locavore/locapour does not mean focusing exclusively on local wines. It means giving props to the quality wines our local vignerons are producing. And Park Hyatt Washington did exactly that in its annual showcase of our local bounty.

Wine: There's an (iPad) App for That

The inevitable has happened. There are now wine magazines created exclusively for the iPad.

The tablet computer is a media revolution, so it isn’t surprising that we now have wine publications dedicated exclusively to this format. It isn’t a complete wine experience of course - the iPad offers sight, sound and touch, but not taste or smell (yet).

First out of the gate was By the Grape, with an introductory issue featuring Jancis Robinson, the British wine writer, master of wine, columnist for the Financial Times, editor of the Oxford Companion to Wine (aka, “The Great Big Book of Everything”), and Internet wine maven. The introductory issue, available in the iTunes App Store for $3.99, is a hagiography of Jancis written in glowing terms. For example, it quotes Hugh Johnson, Britain’s senior wine authority (and co-editor with Jancis of the World Atlas of Wine), saying, “Secretly or not, perhaps we’re all a little bit in love with her.” (Guilty!)

By the Grape is the product of a Dutch team that traveled to Languedoc in southwest France to interview Jancis and her husband, FT restaurant critic Nick Lander, at their summer home. The magazine takes advantage of the iPad’s game-changing features, including interactive tasting notes and a lengthy video (helpfully subdivided into chapters for shorter attention spans), in which Jancis discusses her tasting techniques and tries some surprisingly good Dutch wines, while Lander cooks lunch and raves about the local produce.

It’s actually rippingly good video, of a wino/foodie, Peter Mayle-ish, aspirational sort. And Jancis’ discussion of her wine tasting technique should be watched and digested by every serious oenophile, wine writer, or even casual consumers befuddled by tasting notes. It’s a short distillation of her wonderful book, How to Taste.

“Smells and tastes are not perfect subjects for words,” Jancis says. “They’re very private, they can’t be extracted and objectified and compared to somebody else’s. So you just have to get as close as possible to some other taste that will be comprehensible to people, which I suppose is why in tasting notes you read so many of these strange fruits and herbs and woods and things like that.”

She also explains how young French wines can be reticent in aroma but “amazing” when you taste them, while in contrast, “typically with a very technically made New World wine you’ll have an explosion on the nose, very beguiling and aggressively aromatic, and then it just fades to nothing on the palate.”

The second early entrant into the iPad wine comes from Nomad Editions, a web-based venture headed by former Newsweek magazine president Mark Edmiston. Nomad produces lifestyle publications designed for mobile devices such as iPhone and iPad - including Uncorked, a digital wine magazine launched last month.

Uncorked, a weekly magazine available for 99 cents a month in the iTunes App Store, is actually rather conventional in its approach. It doesn’t take advantage of the interactive possibilities presented by the iPad or iPhone, except you swipe pages rather than turning them.

Yet Uncorked could find a niche: It is smartly written, using well-known wine writers and focusing on value wines versus cult wines (though its definition of “cheap” wine seems to be $30). It could use some sharper editing; cliches about the “snotty French” or pinot noir producers “living on the knife’s edge” quickly get dull, and no wine publication should misspell Lafite. Even so, Uncorked features some lively writing, including an article by Tina Caputo on “flash” Internet sales of collectible wines, or editor Stephen Yafa’s skeptical look at wine aerators.

Uncorked really isn’t different from other wine publications except in its voice, which is noteworthy, and its exclusivity to the mobile format. If it ever takes full advantage of that format and all it has to offer, such as embedded video and the iPad’s interactive possibilities, Uncorked — and other publications such as By the Grape — could help define a new genre in wine media.

(This post appeared in slightly different form on The Washington Post's "All We Can Eat" blog.)

Tour Virginia Wineries By Smartphone

If you’re planning to hit some Virginia wineries this summer, you may want to take them along in your pocket.

Virginia Wine in My Pocket, that is, a new app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch that provides information about most of the Old Dominion’s wineries. It’s the brainchild of Virginia travel writers Rick Collier and Nancy Bauer, who indulged in a marathon tour last year, visiting 150 wineries in 150 days. The app costs $3.99 through iTunes and could be an invaluable resource for planning your explorations of local wine country. (The pair has produced a similar app called Rehoboth in My Pocket. An Android version of the Virginia app is in the works.)

The app offers individual listings of wineries, ciderworks and some winery-affiliated restaurants; it includes professional-quality photographs (Collier snapped more than 10,000 during the tour), maps, directions and glowing writeups. The list can be sorted alphabetically or by a winery’s proximity to Charlottesville or Washington D.C. It can even be sorted by a winery’s proximity to Interstate 81, for an impulse stop.

Looking to dine or lodge at a winery? Or for a kid-, pet- or RV-friendly winery? Picnics, group tours or weddings? It’s all here, including hours, cost of a tasting and whether your AT&T phone will be able to pick up a signal. (Note to the editors: Verizon has issues in the mountains, too.)

This app is cool. Tap on the map page, and you can zoom in on any Virginia wine region and then click on a winery’s icon to go directly to its entry. This app is great for planning a trip or even a spontaneous winery visit while driving through the Virginia countryside.

There are some minor problems. Allow the phone to use your location, and each listing tells you how many miles lie between you and that particular winery. But tap through to get directions from the iPhone’s Map app, and the distances are considerably longer.

And don’t expect wine reviews — at least not obvious ones. Every winery here gets glowing praise, whether for its tasting room, its view or its suitability as a wedding venue. You may need to read between the lines to figure out whether the authors think the wine is worth drinking. At Linden Vineyards, for example, they urge us to “buy a case” to gain entry to the winery’s patio (open only to case-club members on weekends). Down the highway at Barrel Oak Winery, the entry is all about the stylish tasting room, TGIF-friendly happy hours and an extensive quote from the winery’s Web site. One winery for good wine, the other for fun. This app has them all. (And in these instances, at least, the authors’ palates are spot-on.)

The Colliers have planted themselves firmly atop the mountain when it comes to travel apps for Virginia wine country, and it will be tough to knock them off their perch. It’s a niche, to be sure, but I can see this app expanding to include more wineries as Virginia’s industry continues to grow, plus craft breweries, distilleries and wine-country eateries, from barbecue to haute cuisine. Just thumbing through the app makes me want to get in my car and explore.

(This post originally appeared on The Washington Post's All We Can Eat blog.)

Exploring Loire Reds In Their Terroir - Literally

Wine lovers are always searching for the taste of terroir in their wines, but they rarely taste wines in their terroir.

I experienced the latter — literally — in one of the strangest wine tastings I have ever enjoyed. It happened on a cold, damp day late in March last year, near Bourgueil, a small wine town in France’s Loire Valley. I was touring with Ed Addiss and Barbara Selig, the husband-and-wife team that is Wine Traditions, a specialty importer based in Falls Church, and Ben Peach, a friend of theirs who’d abandoned wine retailing in the District for life in France. Addiss had made an appointment with Sandrine Deschamps, half of a husband-and-wife winemaking team, who met us at her winery. But instead of showing us her barrel room and bottling line, Deschamps hopped into her SUV and led us through the winding streets of town and up the hillside to the Grand Mont vineyard, the highest and farthest from the river in the Bourgueil appellation.

On foot, we followed her into a tunnel under the vineyard, into an old quarry that had provided much of the stone that built the town of Bourgueil. During World War II, the labyrinth sheltered Resistance fighters; Deschamps pointed out their anti-Nazi graffiti along one wall.

About 10 years ago, she explained, a group of vignerons had bought the quarry with the idea of using it to store wine and developing it into a tourist attraction. Some vineyard equipment had been placed in a few alcoves; here and there, vine roots from the vineyard above snaked through the ceiling in their quest for moisture. But mostly the cave showed evidence of its previous incarnation as a mushroom farm. There was fungus everywhere: dripping from the ceiling like stalactites, oozing from the walls and encrusting the stone table on which Deschamps had arranged our tasting, for which there were several glasses and a few bottles of wine.

“C’est champignons!” Deschamps said of her table covering. Nobody was tempted to pry some off for shaving onto our evening salads, however.

The Loire Valley is known primarily for its white wines: crisp sauvignon blanc or muscadet and luscious chenin blanc. Cabernet franc dominates the region’s reds, though gamay, pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon and malbec make cameo appearances. For years, the reds had a reputation of being underripe and astringent. Warmer vintages over the past decade have made the wines riper but not ponderous, and some importers have crisscrossed the region searching for the most talented producers. At their best, Loire reds are fresh and invigorating, tasting of black cherry spiced with white pepper. They often have a smoky, savory, leathery quality I call “Grandpop’s library.” Chinon is the best-known area, followed by Saumur, Bourgueil and Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil.

Unfortunately, Loire reds are underappreciated in our market and therefore underrepresented here. But try to find them. Their medium weight makes them ideal reds for summer, and their robust flavors can stand up to hearty meats in any season.

They also appeal to wine explorers: those oenophiles who love delving into the intricacies of why wine tastes like it does. Bourgueil, for instance, is a small appellation, yet it contains three distinct terroirs, as Deschamps explained that day in her mushroomy alcove. (Visits with French winemakers often turn into geology lessons.) Those terroirs are marked by gravelly soil (gravier) near the Loire, clay mixed with flint (argilo-silex) on the slopes around the town, and chalky soil (tuffeau) on the plateau above the town, where we were standing. The wines progress accordingly from the gravier’s soft, supple and young-drinking wines to the tuffeau’s tannic, minerally wines with enough structure to last a decade.

Deschamps’s own wine, the La Fontaine aux Fougeres Myosotis 2008, was made from cabernet franc grown organically in the mid-level, argilo-silex, vineyards. It showed clean, spicy fruit flavors and minerality from the flint in the vineyard soil. A few months later, this wine became part of the Wine Traditions portfolio, along with one from another producer, Bruno Dufeu, grown on the Grand Mont vineyard above our heads. True to its terroir, Dufeu’s wine is powerful, structured and age-worthy.

As Deschamps led us from the maze of tunnels back into the sunlight, I realized that in a short time I had gained a substantial understanding of a small but enchanting French wine district, one well worth exploring.

In Bourgueil, all roads lead to wine.

 

Wine Recommendations

Red wines from the Loire Valley show some diversity of grapes, but cabernet franc is the star. Unless otherwise noted, these are exclusively cabernet franc. They are also noteworthy for their lack of new oak. Loire vignerons apparently do not feel compelled to kill forests to make wine. Bravo! Unfortunately, these wines are not widely available in the Washington area; distributors told me that for some reason, they sell better in other markets.

Domaine Bruno Dufeu Cuvee Grand Mont 2008

*** GREAT VALUE

Bourgueil, France, $15

From the tuffeau (chalky soil) on the plateau above the town of Bourgueil, this wine is stunning for the price. It is deep and richly structured, with black cherry, peppery spice and earthy animal/leather notes. It finishes with soft, supple and savory tannins. It should age well for five to 10 years. Worth stockpiling.

Wine Traditions: Available in the District at Cork Market; on the list at Cork Wine Bar and Petits Plats. Available in Virginia at Chain Bridge Cellars (formerly Cecile’s Wine Cellar) in McLean, J. Emerson Fine Wines & Cheese in Richmond.

Domaine des Baumard Logis de la Giraudiere 2006

**¹ / ₂

Anjou, France, $20

This wine played tricks on me. It was nondescript at first — almost reticent — as if it were evaluating me instead of the other way around. But when it realized I wasn’t going to force it to fit a preconceived idea of what a red wine should be, it drew me close with enticing floral notes and a pure, mineral core. It is a blend of cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon.

M Touton Selection: Available in the District at Rodman’s, Sherry’s Fine Wine & Spirits, Watergate Wine & Beverage. Available in Maryland at Bay Ridge Wine & Spirits in Annapolis, Wine Harvest and World Gourmet Wine & Beer in Potomac; on the list at La Ferme in Chevy Chase.

Manoir de la Tete Rouge Bagatelle 2009

**¹ / ₂  GREAT VALUE

Saumur, France, $15

Cabernet franc grown organically on chalky tuffeau soils, this wine exhibits all of the Loire hallmarks: dark fruit, savory tannins and a spicy, earthy tobacco note that lingers like a fond memory.

Potomac Selections: Available in the District at Cleveland Park Wine and Spirits. Available in Maryland at Calvert Wine & Spirits in Hunt Valley; Mt. Washington Wine Co., Wells Discount Liquors and the Wine Source in Baltimore. On the list at B Bistro, Grand Cru and Helmand Restaurant in Baltimore. Available in Virginia at Arrowine in Arlington Au Domaine in Alexandria, Chain Bridge Cellars in McLean, Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market in Richmond.

La Fontaine aux Fougeres Myosotis 2008

**¹ / ₂  GREAT VALUE

Bourgueil, France, $16

Made from organically grown grapes, this wine is lively with floral, earth and leather flavors. It is nicely balanced and ideal for drinking now, slightly chilled, with burgers or steaks from the grill. Don’t forget the mushroom sauce.

Wine Traditions: Available in Virginia at Arrowine and Whole Foods Market in Arlington.

Domaine de la Colline 2009

**

Chinon, France, $15

From a very ripe vintage, this wine is light and expressive, floral and mineral. Chilling it slightly will enhance its fruit and reveal an inner verve, the way a breeze imparts energy on a warm day.

M Touton Selection: Available in the District at AB Liquors, Circle Wine & Liquor, Cleveland Park Wine and Spirits, Rodman’s, Schneider’s of Capitol Hill, Watergate Wine and Beverage; on the list at Bistrot du Coin. Available in Maryland at Bay Ridge Wine & Spirits in Annapolis; Cork & Fork in Bethesda; Franklin’s Restaurant, Brewery and General Store in Hyattsville; Frederick Wine House, Old Farm Liquors and Viniferous in Frederick; Rodman’s in White Flint; Silesia Liquors in Fort Washington. Available in Virginia at various Wegmans locations, Wine Made Simple in Charlottesville; on the list at Zin in Staunton.

KEY

***Exceptional  **Excellent *Very Good

This article, minus the photographs, was published June 8 in The Washington Post.

Photo credits: Me

Top photo: Welcome sign at the Grand Mont vineyard above Bourgueil.

Second photo: Sandrine Deschamps pours samples for (l to r) Ben Peach, Ed Addiss, and Barbara Selig.

Third photo: The tasting lineup. Where do those mushroomy aromas come from?

Bottom photo: Thirst-inducing roadsign in the town of Bourgueil.

Sidney Moore Margolis, a DC wine retail icon

Sidney Moore Margolis passed away April 9. DC wine lovers of a certain age will remember her as the proprietor of Mayflower Wines & Spirits on M St NW, near the old Marriott hotel and Blackie's House of Beef. It was a major stop on my "Stations of the Vine" pilgrimage each Saturday when I was learning about wine and building a cellar by visiting various wine stores for their free tastings and energetic discussions about wine.

Sidney herself rather kept to herself - she was not a gregarious retailer. She preferred to express herself in the store newsletter, which she personally wrote and typed in the era before computers and the Internet. She would write about the winemakers whose products she featured in the store, or wonderful meals she had with wine, or top-notch olive oils from Tuscany she could offer at the store. It was great reading, and great marketing.

My tribute to Sidney was posted today on The Washington Post's All We Can Eat blog. I hope you'll read it and remember someone who not only sold us wine, but helped us appreciate its role in our culture and in our basic enjoyment of life's finer pleasures.

 

Maryland Enters the Modern (Direct Shipping) Era

 

Finally! After years of waiting, Maryland wine lovers will soon be able to send wine home from their California vacation, thanks to a new law approved by the state legislature in the session just ended.

In a time when the economy is still struggling, Congress can barely manage to keep the federal government going, and Japan tries to cope with the devastation caused by last month's earthquake and tsunami, it seems somewhat parochial and selfish to crow about direct shipping. But it has been a frustrating effort as we Marylanders waited to join the residents of 37 other states and the District of Columbia who already can have wine shipped directly to their homes. For years, we've been denied this by the greedy wholesalers' lobby, which predicted doom and gloom if direct shipping were to become law, and which only begrudgingly agreed to this year's legislation.

It's not a total victory - we can't order wine from out-of-state retailers, for example. And the legislature wouldn't approve corkage bills that would have allowed diners to bring their own wine to Maryland restaurants. But we'll take it.

Kudos to Marylanders for Better Beer & Wine Laws and the Maryland Wineries Association for their efforts over the years to make this law a reality. And cheers to the lawmakers who took a positive step forward. (Even if you did raise the alcohol tax ... )

More details on the new direct shipping legislation are in my Washington Post column for April 6.