Dave McIntyre's WineLine

Oz Clarke Gives Two Thumbs Way Up for Virginia Wine!

Here's a great way to start Regional Wine Week: I received my copy of Oz Clarke's Pocket Wine Guide 2011 yesterday - it's a fun, handy reference volume with short entries on wine grapes, regions and producers around the world, with vintage charts, liberally peppered with bons mots from the effervescently witty Oz. I always enjoy reading his introduction, which this year warns against complacency by wine drinkers in the face of anti-alcohol activists who don't distinguish among drinks.

Then he describes what wines excite him lately. There are some unpronounceable Turkish varieties, and he's hot for Slovenian Furmint and even Cabernet Sauvignon from Jordan. (The country, not the Sonoma County winery.) He's rediscovered Chardonnay from California, New Zealand and Australia, and while he doesn't seem to share my love for Argentina, he gives a begrudging nod to Torrontes.

And then there's this:

"My most thrilling discovery in the USA this year has been the wine from vineyards spread around Washington, DC, in particular those of Virginia, whose sumptuous, scented Viogniers are world-class. A perfect partner for the leaner, racier delights of New York State."

Some disclosure is in order here. I contribute entries on the Eastern United States to this book, and I hosted (and wrote about) Clarke when he visited the Washington area earlier this year and shared his opinions on some local wines. When I met him, though, it was clear he was already quite familiar with many wines from the Mid-Atlantic region and particularly jazzed about Virginia Viognier.

Don't forget to check out DrinkLocalWine.com this week for more postings on regional wines!

More from Oz Clarke

When I wrote about my tasting party with Oz Clarke, the gregarious and hilarious British wine writer, several readers chastised me for not revealing Oz's reactions to the individual wines. So he was kind enough to send me some tasting notes of his favorites. Keep in mind that we tasted probably 30 or so wines that evening ranging up and down the East Coast of the US, but centered on the Mid-Atlantic region. Here are the ones that stuck in Oz's mind:

NASSAU VALLEY VINEYARDS (DELAWARE) CHARDONNAY  2006 AND CABERNET SAUVIGNON 2007

These Delaware wines were new to me. I really liked the lean, stoney fruit, even a little leafy in the red, and the restrained alcohol. I’d countenance a very light hand with the oak, but this is a promising newcomer.

BLACK ANKLE VINEYARDS VIOGNIER 2009 AND LEAF-STONE SYRAH 2008 (MARYLAND)

With a name like that, you just know I’m going to love the wines, though my fantasy about the exact turn of the black ankle may not be entirely based on fact. These are restrained, reserved styles from Frederick County in Maryland and good examples of Maryland’s late but youthful charge on the Eastern wine scene. Or should I say, re-charge; I have fond memories of Byrd Chardonnays from the 1980s.

MICHAEL SHAPS PETIT VERDOT 2005 (VIRGINIA)

Virginia just loves to play hard ball. Most wine regions steer well clear of Petit Verdot – too tricky to ripen, too tannic, can’t pronounce the name, blah, blah. But good ’ole Virginia thinks – hey. Warmish climate, humid, rain in the fall – Petit Verdot, thick skin to avoid rot, needs the heat. We can do that – and they do.  Lovely dark fruit, pleasant tannic grip, a smudge of oak. Welcome to your New World home, P-V.

HORTON VINEYARDS RKATSITELI RESERVE 2008 (VIRGINIA)

Now. Is that R silent? Some people call it Rekatsiteli, the Finger Lakes boys call it Arkatsiteli – but that R, – that P in Russian – isn’t it silent before a consonant? I learnt a bit of Russian – admittedly from a book published in the 1930s when presumably most decent Russian linguists had been incarcerated – so that I could sing Mussorgsky better. I then realised that Mussorgsky isn’t one of those guys you can sing better unless you’re born in deepest Siberia with a throat as wide as a 100-year-old pine tree trunk, so I sort of lost interest. But I still think the R/P question is silent before a consonant. I’m going to pronounce it Katsiteli. And Horton, God bless the fact that they’ve probably planted a row or two of every vine variety known to man – produce a really classic, full, apple puree example only matched in the East by Frank’s Finger Lakes classic that I tasted a few days later. 

SHINDIG 2009 (FINGER LAKES, NEW YORK)

For those toffee-noses who don’t believe the hybrids can do dick shit (sorry, ed - Note from Dave: That's OK, this is the Internet!) this mean, lean, chewy, apple skin and shimmering green flesh tongue scourer is 80% Vidal with a dash of Riesling to pull it towards the legit. side of the blanket.

BOXWOOD WINERY “BOXWOOD” 2007, (VIRGINIA) 

Well, some Virginian had to take on the twin Shibboleths of St-Emilion garagiste and Napa Titan. It’s pretty good if that’s your thing – and Virginia is sort of equidistant, so it should be good. (Note from Dave: Boxwood does two red blends: Topiary, which is modeled after St. Emilion - half merlot, half cabernet franc - and Boxwood, which follows a Left Bank recipe based on cabernet sauvignon, merlot and petit verdot. We tasted the Boxwood, because that’s the one I had on hand, but Oz can be forgiven for mixing them up slightly given the sheer number of wines we tasted that night. Besides, we probably talked about the Topiary and how that is the most popular of the two.)

BILTMORE RESERVE CHARDONNAY 2008, (NORTH CAROLINA)

I’ve been looking at photos of that damned railroad pile for so long, and at last I taste the wine. Intair-es-ting. Here come de Judge. (Note from Dave: I don’t understand this. But the wine was pretty good!)

  

Momentum for Local Wine ...

The "drink local" movement is gaining steam. When my buddy Jeff Siegel, aka The Wine Curmudgeon, received a press release last week touting a dinner with cookbook author Diana Kennedy to be held next month at the Modern Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth, he immediately asked the organizers if Texas or Mexican wines would be among the "carefully selected" wines for the Mexican menu. The museum's chef emailed him that although the menu had not been finalized, Texas wines would be involved. Maybe Mexican wines, too.

In April, the Park Hyatt in Washington added a Virginia winery to its Masters of Food and Wine program after I criticized the all-California selection for an event touting regional Mid-Atlantic agriculture. The Lettuce Entertainment restaurant group did the same for a Chesapeake Bay-themed dinner at their Wildfire restaurant in Tyson's Corner, Va, scheduled for July 27. Once I inquired about it, they quickly lined up Barboursville Vineyards as a co-sponsor and featured winery for the dinner.

The message is getting some big media play, too. Jon Bonne wrote about "justifying local wine" in the San Francisco Chronicle - "local" meaning California, of course. And Steve Heimoff, a senior editor and very distinguished wine writer with Wine Enthusiast magazine, recently blogged about a plea from a vintner for wine lovers to support their local wineries to help them through hard times. Heimoff lives in California wine country, and "local" for him also means California wine, but the message translates. The vintner Heimoff cited was Oded Shakked of Longboard Vineyards, who criticized restaurants for touting their local produce but ignoring local wines.

And that is precisely the message Todd Kliman eloquently espouses in a withering essay posted last week on The Daily Beast. In "The Locavore Wine Hypocrisy," Kliman takes on some of the most famous restaurants in the country for talking a good local game on their menus and not following through on their wine lists.

Here's an excerpt:

"... if these are heady days for the local cheesemaker, butcher, and farmer, they're head-scratching days for the local vintner, who has been largely shut out of the feel-good foodie fad. If the wine lists at the country's most prominent locavore restaurants tell us anything, it's that 'what grows together, goes together'—the mantra of the movement—is meant to refer to what's on the plate, not what's in the glass. Local and regional wines are seldom to be found."

Kliman, the food and wine editor of Washingtonian magazine and author of the tremendous new book, The Wild Vine, rips apart the most common excuse for ignoring local wines - that they are too expensive and better values abound from California. Chefs are willing to pay extra for organic eggs from chickens just up the road, he points out. And sommeliers are supposed to align their wine lists with the chef's menu, even if it means a little extra work to suss out the better wines from the area. But many somms seem unwilling to take a chance on local wines that don't seem trendy.

"The idealism of their mission statements notwithstanding, what locavore restaurants are telling us is that quality matters much less than cachet when it comes to assembling a wine list—the perception that a given product is the best, most exquisite example in its class," Kliman writes.

Maybe once local wines gain a little more cachet, the sommeliers will wake up. What's interesting to me, however, is that momentum for local wine is coming from writers - bloggers, especially - and consumers, rather than retailers or sommeliers. When I eat out, I want my sommelier to be taking chances and to seek out unusual wines - even if they come from just up the road. Don't treat me with kid gloves - dazzle me.

Oz Clarke Triumphs Over Jetlag

When I invited Oz Clarke, the prolific and genial British wine writer, to my house to taste some wines from the Eastern United States, I didn't want to overdo it. He was coming fresh from the airport after a flight from London after all, and the man would be tired.

I needn't have worried. After more than 30 wines, lots of local cheese and homemade bread, a lengthy meal and a few ballads, I was the one waving the white napkin of surrender. Clarke is not only a laserlike palate - he's a raconteur who has never forgotten his professional training in theater. That helps him write entertaining and engaging books about wine, and it gives him amazing stamina at the dinner table. Excerpts of our discussion about wines near and far are in my column in Wednesday's Washington Post Food section. And don't forget my monthly list of Recession Buster wine recommendations.

Books for Wine Lovers

If wine lovers aren't drinking wine, they're talking about it. And if no one's around to listen, they're quite content to read about it, so they'll have something new to talk about the next time someone is around. This year's holiday crop of wine books includes Been Doon So Long, which bears the subtitle, "A Randall Grahm Vinthology." If you're a fan of Bonny Doon or Grahm's esoteric and esoliterate newsletters, this book is for you.

Check out my mini-reviews of Grahm's book, plus the new Concise World Atlas of WIne by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson and Jonathan Nossiter's Liquid Memory, in today's Washington Post, along with my recommendations for some budget-consicious bubbles for your holiday festivities.

And in case you missed it a few months ago, here's my interview with Randall Grahm about his book.