Friday, Sep. 11, 2009

Move beyond the same old thing

By Dan Berger, Wine Press Northwest

We call them grape varieties for a reason. But let's put the horse back in front of the cart.

Walk into a fine wine shop and look at the shelves. Most of it is Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. Most of it is overpriced. Most of it is from newcomers to the wine scene (wine merchants love the new and unknown, regardless of quality). Most of it is higher in alcohol than is medically prudent.

All this leaves the wines mostly tasting like one another.

Most reds are raisin juice. Whites made from Chardonnay are oaky and clumsy. There is sweet Viognier and flabby Syrah. It's all the same old thing in a heavy bottle. I am bored just thinking about it.

What most Americans ignore, partly because of ignorance and reliance on high scores, are the truly exciting aspects of wine that are sitting there, not as much in plain view as in the corners.

You have to go looking for them, for they are wines that aspire to little more than being what they are supposed to be: a dinner companion with impeccable manners.

And the pleasant bonus here is that such wines usually are lower in price than the high-fallutin' stuff.

If variety means anything to grapes, it means differences in aromas and flavors, not the sameness born of high scores in glossy rags. Variety means distinctiveness, it means exotic-ness, it means accessing the grape without having to traverse a serpentine, thicket-like maze of wood, alcohol, malolactic, and extraneous elements that take the liquid away from the grape.

Enter terroir. Here the grape picks up a distinctive and fascinatingly seductive (to me, at least) character that makes a wine hit those special notes that the mundane wines we usually buy never attain.

I do not demand a "terroir component" in the wines I like best, but when I smell the rotondone (black pepper) of a northern Victoria Shiraz, or the sharp, racy minerality of a cool-climate Riesling, the wild spice of a dry Alsace Gewurztraminer and the chalky nature of a lean Graves, I realize why diversity in wine is far more interesting to me than are big, rich, powerful flavors.

Is there no hierarchy for subtlety?

Riesling is one of those varieties we often forget. But just imagine it with foods (carefully chosen to match the wine's sugar level to the richness of the dish). German halb-trocken with seafood has always seemed to me the perfect match that no one ever remembers!

I also love the racy tartness of red Roero from Piedmont (a Nebbiolo of finesse!), Grenache from McLaren Vale, Grenache rose from Spain and the south of France, and tart Muscadet and Sancerre from the Loire. Paired with foods, these wines usually are a lot more interesting than yet another 15% alcohol Cab with its low acidity.

Look at a few of the other options:

Pinot Blanc: If Oregon didn't make superb white wine from this variety, would so many producers keep making it? Fact is, this grape may well be Oregon's second greatest wine achievement (some might suggest Riesling is better!), and a single sip of Ponzi's 2008 proves the point most convincingly. And from California, the Robert Sinskey is as dramatic as any.

Dry rose: The key word here is dry. To me, the drier simply are best when the temperatures rise. Chardonnay to sip on a patio when the thermometer is up? No, thanks. Try Toad Hollow's Eye of the Toad Rose of Pinot Noir for a dry and light wine of perfect balance.

Barbera: The "other" grape of Piedmont has naturally high acidity, and a rusticity that gives the wines an earthy feel and depth that turns mere meat dishes into feasts. They are hard to "judge" on their own because of the demand on the palate, but put 'em with food and watch what happens.

Albariņo: The Spanish grape does well in cooler climates, and can make a fascinating off-dry as well as dry wine that works with floral dishes. The 2008 from Abacela in Umpqua touches few of the traditional notes in any familiar grape variety except perhaps a trace of the spice of Gewurztraminer. Bone dry, the wine sings a song you rarely hear.

Gamay Noir: The real thing perfectly made from France is hard to get, but Amity's Myron Redford has some clonal material that makes a dramatic statement. Hard to imagine a more intriguing wine! And at a fair price.

I could go on. The fact is that some of the world's most exciting wines never made it to 90 on the wish lists of those who use that famous linear scale to rank wines from 50 to 100. But wine is not a line segment; it is a three-dimensional statement of its own creation.

I have seen oddities from the numberers. I have seen a particular Chianti rated as great. Yet when I taste it, though it's remarkably flavored, I find the wine amazing only in one attribute: There is no resemblance to Chianti.

And yet because a wine got "only" an 84, it languishes. But think about it: That wine may have gotten a score that low precisely because the label says it is a Semillon.

Need we explain what is at play here?.

DAN BERGER is a nationally renowned wine writer who lives in Santa Rosa, Calif. He publishes a weekly commentary Dan Berger's Vintage Experiences (VintageExperiences.com).

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