A Little Help with Tasting

Sorry for the long delay between reports. I'm adjusting to the local culture, and nobody really does jack in Hong Kong during the summer. In fact, most of the expat crowd bails the island. But Fall is here. I know this, not because the temperature has changed. It hasn't. It's still basically a rice cooker beyond the air-conditioned confines of the Lab. But I know the season has turned because there's a line at my favorite coffee shop in the morning and all the tables are filled with women who don't play tennis but wear diamond tennis bracelets anyway.

Another aspects of Hong Kong culture I've been adjusting to is the abundance of skilled domestic labor from the Philippines. The market is heavily regulated by the regional authorities. But if you can maneuver through the forms and bureaucracy, you can get what' s known in the local parlance as a "helper."

I decided to get two.

Because I think the helper is a fantastic concept. Now that my responsibilities are reduced at home, I have a lot more time to drink. The Philippines should probably be making a better effort to export this thing globally.

At the Lab, we've been cataloguing and organizing the wines shipped to our new Guangzhou cellars. We've run a few tests on overseas shipping as well which we'll report on soon. But I grabbed an orphan bottle and brought it home last night, to see whether we can further reduce labor costs at the Lab.

I'm growing weary of writing tasting notes. So I poured a glass of a recent vintage Burgundy from bio-dynamic stalwart Hubert Lamy for one of the helpers and asked her what she thinks.

"This is very good, sir," was her reply.

I think she had it about right.

Back to Back (EVOLUTION 4.5)

And back on schedule. Well... sort of.

Having just caught up on the EVOLUTION WHITE program, I made haste to insure I didn't fall similarly behind on the reds and opened another bottle of the 2001 Confuron-Cotetidot Vosne-Romanée.

This wine just keeps getting better and better.

All of a sudden, I'm looking forward to continuing this experiment. The second bottle in the series felt like the wine was on a downhill slope. But maybe that bottle was off? You'd never know from the current bottle that there was every any doubt about the pure beauty of the fruit.

For those of you just tuning in, we began a long duration experiment at the Lab more than two years ago. Our objective: To watch a wine evolve at regular intervals over a 6 year span. One bottle every six months until we've finished the case. We're up to bottle #4 on the reds (you can revisit the reports for 3, 2, and 1 here, here and here.).

The cherry fruit leapt from the bottle. Bright, fresh fruit was apparent on the nose as soon as I pulled the cork, with aromas of earth, stems and spice swirling underneath. The tannins are still a little sharp, but the wine has gained heft and density. The fleshy (by contrast to prior bottles) fruit was immediately approachable, even if the wine did continue to improve with air.

I will definitely not be late on the next one.

Support for a Theory

The 2005 vintage of the Confuron-Cotetidot Vosne-Romanee smelled of woodsmoke and plum skins. It also had an odd, meaty note that I don't usually associate with Pinot. In the mouth, it was tart cherry fruit and peppery spice with a big, green-tinged tannic bite on the finish.

Given the growing conditions of the vintage, I expected ripe, maybe even over-ripe, fruit. I read somewhere that the high tannin levels in the 05s might be an issue. This bottle suggests that's true.

But it was remarkable to drink this next to the 2001. It was so clearly a younger relation. The wines had nearly identical structure, similar linear elements, common aromas and flavors.

Surely there's a big clue about terroir in those shared traits.

And in the differences.

An Education

As I mentioned, I was a little apprehensive opening the next installment of the Evolution (Red) series. The last bottle drank older than its years. I feared the 2001 vintage was set for early expiration.

So it was a startling epiphany when I tasted 2001 Vosne-Romanée last night.

The wine was really good. Way better than the last one.

All the architecture was there. But more fruit. Denser, more approachable. Stewed fruit, blackboard chalk, grape stems, white pepper and sandalwood on the nose. On the palate, tart cherry, allspice, leather, minerals and mocha.

I don't know if the last bottle was flawed, if slightly...

The Confurons have been vignerons for more than three centuries. More recently (80s), Jacky Confuron used careful vineyard management, grape selection and punched down the cap with his feet and so developed a reputation for making highly structured, old-school wines. More recently still (now), his sons Yves and Jean-Pierre have taken the helm but have continued making wines like Dad. The vineyards have NEVER seen pesticides, not even when this was fashionable. Vines are old. Yields are low. The wines have a reputation for their ability to age.

So maybe this wine is just coming into its own.

I've got nine to go. So I sure hope so.

I'll make good on my compare/contrast 2001 and 2005 tomorrow.

EVOLUTION 3.5: Better Late Than Never

The combination of my summer illness and the protracted negotiations regarding our TARP repayment has delayed the next installment in the Lab's EVOLUTION series. We're overdue to taste the next red.

Some of you may remember that the last time we drank one of the reds from our long duration experiment, 2001 Confuron-Cotetidot Vosne-Romanée, we drank it alongside an older vintage, a bottle from 1988. This time we thought we'd go the other way -- mostly because I happened to find a 2005 at a wineshop in town.

I'll admit, I'm a little nervous about this bottle. The last one seemed to be giving up the ghost (or at least the fruit).

Stay tuned.

The Last Days of Joly (for Me)

I think the Day 1 tasting note for the Joly wine sums it all up nicely (see yesterday's post if you're already behind):

Gun metal and rubbing alcohol with faint floral perfume.

Now I've had enough of Joly's wines to know that all is not necessarily lost at this point. The palate was sharply acidic, but still had some interesting complexity. This wine could stage a comeback. I've seen it happen.

Day 2 for the Joly: Smells like nail polish.

And Day 3: Something killed this.

There would be no come back for the Clos Sacres this time. The Villaine white Burgundy, meanwhile, was singing.

Day 1-3: Nose is an interesting mix of honey, clover, coddled cream and lemon oil. There's also a strong oak undertone of vanilla. In the mouth, more lemon with some grapefruit/lime acidity, and ripe apple and freshly cut grass.

This held up pretty well and drank consistently, and with little evolution, over the first three days. On Day 4, however, the barrel effects took over in an unappealing way. A smell like the banana flavored novocaine my dentist used in the 70s dominated and the fruit faded behind a tart acidity.

So this could have been a classic battle. The Joly tortoise versus a Burgundian hare, with the reptile closing the distance and claiming victory on the final day. It could have been exciting. Except that the tortoise was DOA from the start.

To add insult to injury, I opened a second bottle of Les Clos Sacres on day 1. It was frizzante and cloudy; some refermentation had occured in the bottle.

I get that sulfur, or more accurately, the absence of sulfur, has become a fashion in wine. And Joly has long been on the edge of that trend. But maybe using some sulfur should remain in vogue for wine that you know you're going to ship from France to America. Joly labels this wine for the North American market (it's called Les Vieux Clos in France), so perhaps he should sulfur for export as well.

When Joly's wines are good, they can be sublime. But in the past year or so, I've had more misses than hits. I really don't know if this can be chalked up to just (a reluctance to use) sulfur. But I do know buying these wines seems more and more like a roll of the dice.

Flying Colors

I feel there's a fair amount on the line here. Having been mocked for selecting an "unserious" wine for our Evolution Project, I'm hoping for some redemption. Moreover, I bought a full case of this wine, so if it sucks we're already committed to drinking eleven more.

So I'll admit to feeling a few butterflies while the Lab tasting room attendant opened the bottle of 2001 Confuron-Cotetidot Vosne-Romanée and poured glasses for the Evolution Project Tasting Committee (hereafter: EPTC).

I'm not sure why I was nervous. The Confuron are an ancient Burgundian family who have been making wine for more than three centuries. Their vineyards are strictly organic and their vines are established and old. They farm for low-yields and never fine or filter their wines. According to their English importer, "The wines more approachable in the medium to long term. In fact, one of the key strengths is their ability to age and develop."

All eyes were on me as I swirled a taste in my glass.

The wine has a brown-hued ruby color that gives it a sense of being older than the vintage suggests...

I immediately worried about oxidation. But it turned out to be just the color of the wine.

On the nose it offers up rich plum and blackberry aromas with underlying hints of cedar, forest floor and pumpkin pie spices. It's not as dense or complex on the palate but this might be because the red fruit flavors are so dominated by the massive minerality of the finish. The tannins were slightly bitter at the outset, and maybe a little green, but they improved with air. Becoming velvety after an hour in the glass. This wine had great balance and compelling structural depth.

I wouldn't argue this was epic. But it was very good, easily worth the $22 I paid for it. I'm already looking forward to the next one.

Take that, Jack!

Evolution 1.5: RED

Some of you will remember that this summer we began a bold and innovative long-term study at the Lab. We acquired a case of each of Red Burgundy and New Zealand Riesling. We set out to taste them on a precise schedule, one bottle every six months, to chart their progression over time.

And like Galileo, the Wright Brothers and Rodney Dangerfield before us, we were mocked for the audacity of our vision. A reader informed us:

I can't say I'm agreeing that a $22 NZ Riesling, nor a $22 bottle of red Burg are "serious" and something to seriously age.

I don't know of anyone intentionally ageing (sic) NZ riesling in their cellars (German and Austrian are by far the two choices), and those $22 red Burgs are to be drunk young...they'd sell for more it they were meant for (or could improve with) ageing (sic).

---- Jack, July 15, 2008

We didn't defend ourselves then, nor will now. Because, my friends, I know how to do this...

Wait a second. "I know how to do this?" You didn't think I seriously thought that would work ? Of course, it doesn't. So here's the rationale for our selections.

The white, a 2005 Pyramid Valley Vineyards Lebecca Vineyard Riesling, may be from New Zealand, but it has been heralded as exceptional by legendary Australian wine writer James Halliday (amongst others), who noted (ironically in this context) that the wine has, "the texture of Mosel auslese." It was designed by the winemaker to reflect a pure expression of the Riesling grape and the local terroir. It is certainly built to age, even if it's drinking beautifully now.

The Red is a 2001 J. Confuron-Cotetidot Vosne-Romaneé. My assistant found the current release, the 2005 vintage, on Wine-Searcher for $55. So not only does it qualify as "serious" according to Jack's (somewhat ridiculous) definition. But it also counts as finding a great bargain on a good wine from a minor vintage from a solid producer.

Today we plan open our first bottle of the Red in the Lab. So we will also be testing my value-oriented procurement strategy. But I've always been successful buying producers I respect regardless of the generally perceived quality of the vintage. So it's a test I'm pretty sure I'll pass. Plus, I'll be grading the exam myself.