Jefferson's Bubbles [ROOTS 7]

Continuing our pre-phylloxera thought-experiment, our journey back to the wines of founding wanker, Thomas Jefferson, we turn now to Champagne.

Jefferson was certainly a fan of Champagne. During a 4 month span as President, he once went through 207 bottles. To be fair, the same ledgers documenting the alcohol consumption also indicate he served these to more than 600 dinner guests. So it wasn't like he was holed up in the Oval Office pounding Veuve like the Duke.

As far as I know (which means checking Keith Levenberg's invaluable list and searching diligently through Peter Liem's really terrific blog), there are only two Champagnes produced from grapes grown on ungrafted vines. Bollinger's, very expensive, Vielles Vignes Françaises and Tarlant's, hardly cheap, La Vigne d'Antan.

The Tarlant wine comes from a tiny parcel (less than an acre) of 50 year-old Chardonnay vines in the village of Oeuilly. The sandy soil there safeguards Tarlant's own-rooted vines from our nasty yellow pest.

Benoit Tarlant, the current heir to a line of Tarlant winemakers that goes back to the 17th century, seems a fellow-traveler in our thought-experiment. From the company's website: "the Vigne d'Antan reveals the true nature of the chardonnay grape, with aromas unknown elsewhere since the 19th century (when phylloxera devastated the vineyards of France)."

Our bottle is a little older than the current release (based on the 2000 vintage). According to the label, it was disgorged Dec 17, 2004; according to fellow ungrafted aficionado Keith Levenberg, it is a blend of 80% 1999 and 20% 1998 vintages (thanks Keith!).

It has a rich nose of creamy, vanilla brioche with a hint of sweet honey, and a secondary note of crushed, damp rocks. Perhaps the most mineral-forward champagne I've ever tasted. River stones on the attack, then a luxurious golden apple fruit mid-palate. The two elements twist and twirl through a long elegant finish. This is a big, complex, beautifully structured and integrated wine; it just happens to have bubbles. Brilliant bubbles.

No wonder Jefferson went through this stuff at pace.

You can catch up on the rest of the Lab's ROOTS series here (hint: read bottom to top).

Jefferson Loved Riesling [Roots 5]

Thomas Jefferson was a big Riesling fan. He stocked the cellars of the White House with it. Toured vineyards along the Rhine. Even recorded drinking a 60+ year old Hochhiem wine during a tour of Germany. He was known to be partial to wines from Schloss Johannisberg in the Rheingau. Alas, the long history of this illustrious producer includes an assault from Phylloxera and a replanting on Vitis labrusca rootstock.

But at Weingut Carl Schmitt-Wagner, the grapes are grown on own-rooted vines that are legitimate antiques, planted in 1896 in the blue Devonian slate on the steep slope of the Longuicher Maximiner Herrenberg vineyard above the Rhine.

The vineyards had long been in the possession of the Benedictine Convent of St. Maximin until Napoleon liberated them from their possession. The Schmitt-Wagner family took over the secularized estate in the early 1800s and have produced wines from the 9 acre parcel up to the present.

Their Kabinett level Riesling is certainly one of the best values from the Levenberg List of own-rooted vineyards. It's usually priced around $20. Even for a 2002 vintage, I recently found at K&L Wines.

A vibrant, honeyed nose with classic burnt rubber, goût petrol. White flowers and tangerine zest finish the bouquet. This wine has beautiful balance and integration. Limestone-laced Fuji apple with a nervy acid (Clementines) carries into a honeyed, chalky finish.

As with the own-rooted Cabernet Franc we tasted recently, I'm struck by the purity and (unbelievable) integration of this wine. The mineral and fruit elements are beautifully intertwined, creating a holistic experience of the terroir. It's tougher to break these wines down into individual parts. Their beauty seems to rest in their sum.

Original Roots [ROOTS 4]

(the series finally gets serious)


So now we're down to brass tacks. We have Keith Levenberg's list of Vitis vinifera rooted vineyards. And we know Thomas Jefferson loved Bordeaux. We're so close to the goal line you can almost taste the freshly cut grass, loamy soil and chalky, graphitic elements of the limestone (for our slower readers, that's a little tasting note joke; the bouquet of endzone). So, of course, it would be at this juncture where we hit a snag.

No one from Bordeaux makes the list.

There are a few vineyards that have proved immune to our pesky little invader. But many of the vineyards on Levenberg's list are an experimental race against time. It turns out, you can plant vines on their own roots, and grow perfectly good grapes even with Phylloxera already present in the soil. It's only after about 25 years, give or take a decade, that the infestation become life-threatening. Unfortunately, this is right about the time when the grapes start getting really good. So some vintners are willing to roll the dice, see how far they can stretch production. Others play a rotation game, re-planting in cycles. But if you have dirt as preciously over-valued as Bordeaux, you aren't playing games with it.

So what are we to do?

Come on. It's a thought-experiment. How hard could it be to think our way around this dilemma? Bordeaux is a blend of (mostly) Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. And there's plenty of Cabernet Franc on Levenberg's list. We'll start there. Fill in the other grapes as we go.

For anyone who thinks this is cheating. Get over it. Wines made from ungrafted vines are enormously interesting. And neglected by collectors and connoisseurs. Which means you can find some amazing bargains. The Carl Schmitt-Wagner Riesling grown on ungrafted vines planted in the 19th century is $20. Twenty bucks!! The own-rooted Pierre & Catherine Breton, Bourgueil Franc de Pied is only a few bucks more. And both are sensational. Morever, as we can't be more precise, we'll just have to try to drink as many of these wines as we can. Then seek a calculus of varied experience that trend toward an answer.

That in mind, the Lab has chosen as its first "Jefferson bottle" a 2005 Charles Joguet Chinon, Les Varennes du Grand Clos Franc de Pied (K&L Wines, $43). According to the winemaker's website, "the production methods used to make this experimental cuvée, born with the 1986 vintage are still kept secret." Which is simultaneously sexy and lame. But the Joguet house employs organic and sustainable farming, picks by hand and produces only single-vineyard wines. Jefferson would have been down.

Our Lab notes: We probably opened this 10 years too early. It's a deep garnet color, almost indigo, and iridescent on the fringe. A tight, green nose of plum jam, dusty coriander and fresh turned earth. A impeccably balanced wine, even with the sour bite of young tannins. Fruit and stones turn a tight, harmonious... (given context, gotta be a) Virginia Reel. It's impossible to extricate fruit from mineral. Is it chalky cherry or plummy granite? Perhaps it's mere projection, but this wine has a discernible purity and a racing vitality. It is a subtly beautiful wine.

Jefferson would definitely have been down.

We'll be doing this again.

(antique claret image: © Mikko Pitkänen | Dreamstime.com )

The President and The Bug [ROOTS 3]

(Third in a series)

Thomas Jefferson was one of the earliest adopters of the idea that the New World could produce great wines. To achieve agricultural self-sufficiency, not to mention political independence, a homegrown wine industry was an imperative. Jefferson planted vines years before his famous declaration, encouraging an Italian immigrant, Filippo Mazzei, to plant European varietals on donated Monticello acreage. But the vines didn't take.

Probably because of a tiny bug native to North America who feeds at the roots of grape vines. An aphid-esque, sap-sucking insect, Daktulosphaira vitifoliae. Otherwise known as Phylloxera vastatrix, "the dry leaf devastator." Sounds like something you'd need a cape and a bite from a radioactive spider to take on.

In the early 1860s, almost a century after Jefferson's failed experiments in New World viticulture, Phylloxera was inadvertently introduced to the Old World. A no doubt villainous Monsieur Borty of Roquemaure in the Côtes du Rhône (ironically, this is also the place where the French classification system for wine, AOC, was born) is held to blame. Within just a few years, the little yellow pest had devastated vineyards from Portugal to the Crimea, conquering Europe faster than Julius Caesar.

To the rescue came a French botanist and an American entomologist. They saved the day, not to mention the European wine industry, by grafting European grapes (Vitis vinifera) to the Phylloxera resistant roots of American vines (Vitis labrusca).

And there -- the pun is inevitable -- lies the root of our problem.

The first vintages of grafted wines were deemed "undrinkable," perhaps even imbuvable in some quarters. At the time, there were many who believed the wines of Jefferson's cherished Bordeaux would never regain their pre-bug quality. There are some who persist in this belief today.

So to really drink like Jefferson, we must map a return to that Age d'Or of pre-Phylloxera wines. Which leaves us two choices: 1. Spend vast sums buying old vinegar at auction. 2. Find wines made from grapes grown on ungrafted, or own-rooted, vines. But how to find such fabled vines?

Fortunately, Keith Levenberg, a true connoisseur (there is no single name that shows up on more pages of CellarTracker tasting notes I visit than Levenberg's; I often feel I'm walking in his winey footsteps; does that count as stalking?) and the author of the highly erudite, always clever and often times funny Picky Eater, has sourced a list (scroll down) of wines made from ungrafted vines. Which cuts us quickly to our end.

"So now can we drink?"

Almost, grasshopper. A little more patience.


(vines image: © Willyvend | Dreamstime.com)

Jefferson's High-End Inventory [ROOTS 2]

(Second in a series)



We actually have a pretty good idea what Thomas Jefferson was drinking. He was a fastidious record-keeper and a manic archivist. He kept everything. Letters he received, copies of letters he sent, receipts, invoices, inventories. He was a Pack Rat of the highest order.

Before his first junket to Paris in 1784, like the rest of his countrymen, Jefferson mostly drank Madeira, some Port and the odd Portuguese table wine. In France, with the help of Ben Franklin and John Adams, Jefferson discovered better wines. By the time he took a celebrated tour through vineyards of Europe in 1787, Jefferson had developed an expensive palate. His archives reveal a great fondness for Bordeaux from the chateaux of Lafite, Margaux and Haut-Brion, Sauternes from Yquem and Burgundy from the famed villages of Meursault and Montrachet. After this trip, he began to order wine directly from the chateaux (proto mail-order), requesting his order be bottled and packed at the estate (bottling at the vineyard would not become commonplace until the 1920s!) to insure that brokers and other middle-men weren't messing with his juice.

So we could, in theory, consult Jefferson's detailed and much published wine inventories and invoices and drink just what Jefferson was drinking (This also assumes a theoretical absence of budgetary constraints at the Lab; Jefferson's favorites are horribly expensive).

But in the view of almost everyone at the Lab, this misses a big and important detail. We're not interested in the quiz answer to "What was Th: J. drinking?" We're more excited about imagining what was in the actual glass. What did it taste like? How was the bouquet? And none of the wine that Jefferson drank at the turn of the 18th century was grown on vines grafted onto American roots. So matching contemporary brands against Jefferson's ledgers wouldn't leave us drinking the "same" wines anyway. Almost all of the wines imported from Europe today are grafted onto New World rootstocks.

How did that happen? Many of you already know, but for the rest, we have one more chapter of the history to cover before we start drinking...


(image credit: © Maksim Esin | Dreamstime.com)

What Was Th: J. Drinking? [ROOTS 1]

I've recently read The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine by Benjamin Wallace, Crown Publishers, 2008. Soon after, I found a Cliff's Notes version of the same events by Partick Radden Keefe in the September 3, 2007 issue of The New Yorker. It's a good story whether told in several hundred pages or just twelve.

The gist is this: A guy who calls himself Hardy Rodenstock claims to have found a cache of old wines hidden in a bricked-up basement in Paris. These wines are from some of the most famous vineyards in France, Lafite, Yquem, Mouton and Margaux and are purportedly etched with the initials Th.J. So clearly, the third President of the United States left them there on one of his several sojourns in France.

Kip Forbes thinks so. He's Malcolm's son and a good argument for leaving your money to your pets. He bought a Jefferson bottle from Rodenstock (via Christie's) in 1985 for 105,000 Pounds; $156,000 in the fat dollar 1980s. The Forbes family then put the wine on display in a case under a hot lamp (see the Lab's report on what happens when you "cook" wines this way). The cork fell into the bottle and nobody ever drank the wine. Several of Rodenstock's "Jefferson Bottles" have been sold at auction for enormous sums.

I'll leave it to you to find out how exactly the whole mystery turns out. But I think it's safe to assume that if you're dumb enough to spend $100,000 plus on a bottle of 200 year-old wine, you shouldn't be too surprised to find out later that it's either vinegar or fake.

Forbes isn't alone. Really old bottles of wine seem to play a big role in the separating of fools from their money. Since 1998, more than 19 magnums of 1947 Lafluer (fancy Bordeaux) have sold at auction. Unfortunately, only 5 magnums were bottled by the vineyard in 1947.

And apparently the fakes can be good. The renowned wine-scorer, Robert Parker, gave one of Rodenstock's magnums of 1921 Petrus (even fancier Bordeaux) a perfect, 100 point score. According to Petrus, they didn't bottle any magnums in 1921.

Reading about rich guys buying and (usually not) drinking wines gets tiring. Quickly. But the issue of Thomas Jefferson's wine connoisseurship does raise, at least for me, an interesting question. It's a simple one.

What was Th J drinking? By most accounts, he's America's first wine-wanker. Jefferson was the guy who sat at the end of the table in Early America, swirling his glass, forcing you to try to smell the cherry stems and vanilla in your glass. He probably banged on about malolactic fermentation while you stabbed your leg with a fork too.

Drinking an actual bottle from Jefferson's cellar (even if it were the real thing) amounts to historical fetishism, a secular Last Supper-ish communion with an icon of liberty. But it would not be drinking what Jefferson waxed on about from his table at Monticello. Because whatever he was drinking, it definitely wasn't 200 years-old. Like the rest of us, Jefferson drank his claret not long after buying it.

There must be a better form of communion with the past possible, some way to transport ourselves into Jefferson's cellar. The Lab is typically focused on more practical research (not that time-travel isn't practical). But this sort of thought-experiment seems a worthwhile diversion.

Stay tuned (first in a series)...


(image: © Istar55 | Dreamstime.com)