Foreign Exchange

As I seem too often to be starting these Lab missives with an apology for delay, I have instead decided to officially memo-rialize that Lab Reports will come a little less frequently than previously. At some point, I'm sure we will return to our pre-Asia pace of experimentation. But right now... frankly, we're just too busy making history to have much time for chronicling it.

In addition to drinking from it, we make an ongoing and continuing effort to hedge the value of the bottles in the Lab's cellars. Foreign currency has long been our favorite hedging vehicle. Lately, roiled markets have meant we've been crazy-busy. Mostly busy selling as many US dollars as we can. As the Fed seems to be long green ink, we've really had to step beyond our usual efforts.

Until today. Today, we have a new strategy.

Instead of trading currencies, we are starting our own.

Now, just like the United States Federal Reserve, we can use quantitative easing as a way of reducing the real value of our significant tabs at bars, restaurants and wineries around the world.

We hatched this audacious plan after tasting our way through a fair few of the gray market Delatite Wines we recently acquired.

And they're as crazy-good as our new Lab Rupees.

The 2008 sparkling Pinot Noir, Demelza, presented great depth and breadth. A faint salmon hue with beautiful aromas of strawberries, pink grapefruit, baking bread and Turkish delight. The palate is a swirling mix and linear stretch of all those same flavors, especially the Ruby pink grapefruit, with some beguiling chalky limestone minerality.

The 2008 sparking Gewurztraminer, Polly, showed lemon and grapefruit zest, spice and toast. This one might be a little imprecise on the attack but spreads out with a rich mid-palate burst of apple fruit with tangerine and grapefruit acidity before a finish of pencil leads. I'm thinking this might benefit from a little cellar time. Although it drinks beautifully now. And did I mention it's Gewurztraminer? Crazy-crazy.

David Ritchie's white and sparkling wines all seem to have a French soul (I have no experience with the reds). The Sauvignon Blanc is more Sancerre than Australia. Same for the Alsatian styled Gewurztraminer (non-sparkling) and the un-wooded Chardonnay (that must in fact see a little oak?). And they are all windows into Ritchie's uniquely located vineyards. I am a fan of the entire range.

But it was the 2009 Riesling, whose own soul lies a little East of France somewhere along the Mosel, that I found most intriguing. Its flavors of lime and grapefruit and whatever lies beneath the Buller soil that drinks like limestony slate, with traces of clover and honey, are simply delicious. And while it's style is decidedly German, this is not a wine that aspires to be from someplace it is not. It is profoundly tethered to its high country Victorian trellises.

Even if it's easy enough to pour a glass, close your eyes, and imagine a vineyard along the banks of some Rhine tributary that you've never heard of and cannot get to.

Biodynamics is Sexy/Bullshit

I'm far from agnostic on the subject of biodynamics. Regular readers know I drank deeply of the Buried Cow Horns kool-aid (you have to search "biodynamic" if you want to see the full catalog). Our second Lab Report even featured this photo of Rudy Steiner.

Regular visitors also know I have no truck with facile New Age charlatanism (unless I stand to make serious profits from claiming otherwise). We're even on record calling the patron saint of biodynamics an "all around weirdo".

For me, the simple facts are these. I like to buy wine from farmers. And I like to drink wine that says something about when and where it came from (terroir). Biodynamics is a good clue for me about what's in the bottle and how it got there. I'm also aware that biodynamics in practice is fairly fluid and very flexible. Unless practiced incorrectly, it's not a strict orthodoxy. In fact, some adherents don't even include biodynamic on the label (Chidaine, Huet, Pyramid Valley Vineyards, et al). And maybe it's many adherents. After all, how would you know?

There are other facts to consider. I've had some crap biodynamic wine. I've been told that biodynamic treatments include too much copper. I don't know jack about actual agriculture, but throwing a heavy metal around your fields doesn't sound like a super-great idea. And culty "wine" maker Frank Cornelissen told one of the Lab staff recently (Hi Annie!) that biodynamics is still lost in the wrong paradigm because, "It tries to be a cure."

So where do I come out on biodynamics? I find the whole mystical, occultish approach to making alcohol to be very sexy and totally inane.

But what do I know? Maybe giant vortexes from the dark side of the moon do have an impact on phenolic ripening. Maybe magnetic fields do wreck the complexity of intermingling polyphenols. Maybe it's not a coincidence that Druids and Jedi Knights wear the same sorts of cloaks.

But if the wine tastes great, who cares? That's where I am on this. Except I do care about the Jedi/Druid thing.

It is true my brand of studied indifference to all things religious is perhaps unique (you see what I did just there?). It certainly is at Stu Smith's house.

A little context: Stuart Smith is one of two brothers who run Smith-Madrone in St Helena. I think their Riesling is among the best in California; it might even be the best one. They farm steep, hillside vineyards with what seems to be a sustainable approach to viticulture. They make their wines in "artisanal" fashion. In the past, I've even swapped a few emails with Stu and he seems like a charming and interesting guy. I love everything about this producer.

Except this. Stu Smith has started a new blog: Biodynamics is a Hoax. The vitriol is dense. He is seething mad about Rudy Steiner's posthumous success. I mean, he's seriously pissed off about this stuff.

Why does he care?

I have no idea why.

Are we seriously expected to debate this stuff? And what would that look like?

My vortex is bigger than yours. Your magnetic fields suck. I can't fight you because it's a root day.

Come on. Does anyone really care? I don't care. Please join me in not caring.

But whether I care is beside the point. Biodynamics is emerging as a major trend in viticulture. And the wine press, its new media arm in particular, is taking up the cause -- both for and against -- with verve.

So I thought the Lab should do its part and provide a small measure of community education on the topic.

Tomorrow we'll publish a short, reasonable/rational, and yet still passionate defense of biodynamics and all it's wonderful hippy mysticism and occult fantasia. It was written in counterpoint to Stuart Smith's new blog. And I think it's is worth reading.

May the Force be with you.

Moving is a Bitch and some EVOLUTION 4.0

Packing up the Lab was a painful and distracting exercise. And I've clearly fallen behind in my reporting. But I have now landed safely on far eastern shores and hope to catch up while I wait for the Lab's cellars to arrive on their proverbial slow boat.

Amongst other experimental documentation oversights of the past weeks, I have a report from tasting bottle # 4 of our long duration experiment, EVOLUTION/category: white.

(see prior posts here: 1.0, 2.0 & 3.0)

Just to remind you, we're drinking a case of white wine, a bottle at 6 month intervals until we've finished the case. More specifically, we're drinking the much-hyped Pyramid Valley Winery's Lebecca Vineyard Riesling, 2006.

I'll admit that beyond the obvious experimental value, I've just plain enjoyed drinking this wine. What bottle #4 seems to demonstrate is... consistency. The wine doesn't seem to have travelled far from bottle #3. With these last two bottles, the terpenes seem to have faded (wonder if that fancy goût petrol will come back?), giving way to a complex and dense spectrum of citrus smells -- peel, pitch, oil and juice. The palate is nearly identical. Glycerin, lime, nectarine, tangerine, limestone, sea-spray. If anything the wine seems to be finding a greater harmony, wherein the whole seem greater than its parts.

Can't wait for #5.

Something New: Day 2

I've always been curious about the idea that a wine that holds up on the second day is well suited for aging. It is certainly well suited to handle exposure to oxygen for 24 hours. But is this really proof of longevity? Everybody thinks so. But everybody thinks a lot of things that aren't true.

Before you start writing letters, I'm not making any claims for or against here -- unlike the controversy I started by claiming that decanters are just for show which is definitely true, and you can write all the letters you want but the facts won't change) -- I'm just expressing a curiosity on the topic.

It's a tough hypothesis to test rigorously. But regular readers know that rigor isn't actually one of The Lab's strong suits. So we'll test it in our own way.

I figured since I'm watching the evolution of the Pyramid Valley Riesling anyway, I might just add this test to the mix. So last night, I left a single glass worth of wine in the bottle -- which did require a great deal of discipline on my part. No inert gas; no pump. I just capped the bottle and put it back in the fridge.

Twenty-four hours later...

It was still brilliant. No discernible fade. The acidity was crisp and bright. The fruit luscious. If anything the aromatics had improved.

If there's any truth in this notion, this wine should hold up for the duration.

Guess we'll see about that.

And if you do write letters, please be sure to mention the Stelvin closure (screw top) because The Lab is just looking for an excuse to enter into the whole cork controversy as well.

Hello Again

EVOLUTION 3.0.

It's time to check in with our Evolution programme wherein we follow a single wine for the long haul. Today we taste the white category entrant, the 2006 Pyramid Valley Vineyards Lebecca Riesling (and by "we," I mean me, hiding in my office, hoping none of the staff wander in and force me to share.).

The nose first shows subdued petrol notes, followed by lemon oil, citrus pith and something herbal/green (verbena?). In a profound way, the wine tastes just like it smells. The attack is citric acidity with enough energy that you briefly think frizzante? The mid-palate has terpene notes intertwined with apple, nectarine, clover and honey. A limestone finish almost completely eclipses the sweet. With some time in the air, you would swear you can smell the lees in your glass.

This wine seems to have gained some flesh since we last tasted it, as if the orchard fruit were ripening in the bottle. There's still some glycerin but it seems less obvious at this stage. But the structure of the wine seems more forward now, an architecture finding a foundation.

I've always thought this wine had an unexpectedly Mosel quality, like a brilliant counterfeit. But with time the forgery fades and you have to acknowledge the unique artistry that's there in the (new) original.

Shell Game

This could be a tale of two vineyards.

In our ceaseless search for dirt, we end up seeking out a great deal of single-vineyard wine at the Lab. Recently, we drank two outstanding North American Rieslings each from it's own vineyard.

The first is born of Randall Grahm's re-scaled, relocated venture. A 2007 Pacific Rim, Solstice Vineyard Riesling.

The nose is diesel, verbena and citrus pith. The terpenes dominate in a way that would make me nervous about laying this down. But at the moment, they're relatively tame and the palate is simply beautiful. Honeyed tangerine swells over pear and lemon and grapefruit. There's an unusual lingering, loamy minerality. Classic Riesling flavors with unique "specific-ness."

Next we drank the 2007 Smith-Madrone, Riesling.

There's a vinous nose of orchard fruit and litchee. In the mouth, a beautiful mix of crisp, acidic MacIntosh apple and sweet Bosc pear. There is a light glycerin touch evident on the attack that almost seems to coat the tongue, paving the way for the fruit. There is a sensation of sweet even though the wine is dry. Mid-palate you begin to notice evidence of a solid, mineral architecture which builds through a long finish. This is traditionally-styled Riesling with a clear and unique vineyard signature.

But here's the trick. While these are both beautiful, terroir-specific, expressions of Riesling. One, I bought at a shop. The other was a sample.

Does it really matter which is which?

Up Another Creek

All of this happened in April.

We left the Tamar Valley (catch up on our voyage here) and headed south, further south in fact than I have ever been. Any further south and I'm a penguin.

Though we were still searching for the perfect Tassie sparkler, I couldn't shake the taste of the Riesling we'd had at Goaty Hill.

Maybe it was an early sign of the fever, or maybe I was just feeling greedy, but I made Chinskirin stop at more than one cellar door along the way. I couldn't help myself from wondering, what if all the Rieslings here are that good?

Turns out they aren't.

But we did find one other gem. Winemaker Kate Hill, who has worked at Stefano Lubiana Wines and Riverina Winery, has recently launched her own label. Working with fruit sourced from several vineyards around Tasmania.

Her first Riesling vintage (2008) is, as the locals say, a fair dinkum beauty. The nose is lemon verbena, lime pith and Oolong tea. It's slightly off-dry, with a nice balance between sweet (passion fruit) and acid (tangerine). There's pear and glycerin mid-palate, and a flinty, mineral finish.

I would love to see what Kate might do with a single-vineyard. I made vague efforts to argue the point, but the whispers were growing louder, the rumors emerging as truth. Chinskirin was anxious to keep moving. Our quest now had a name.

Moorilla.

A Surprise Along the Way

April Again.

Never sure what might lie around each bend, we made our way deeper into the lush country. And after a long day along the river, Chinskirin convinced me to stop, I suspect, hoping I would come to my senses and turn back.

Instead -- oh, happy accident -- we found ourselves at the foot of the vineyards at Goaty Hill. So I pulled a reluctant Chinskirin along to see what was on offer. And -- oh, happy accident redux -- they had just opened a bottle of the 2006 Goaty Hill Riesling.

It had a brilliant goût de pétrole on the nose, with bright lime and grapefruit acidity, a dense and honeyed glycerin quality and sweet granitic finish. Perhaps my senses had been weakened by the miles, but I thought it was outstanding.

We also tasted the current release, the 2008. It was less Spätlesen in character, and more in line with the bright, fresh Rieslings I associate with the region. And also very good.

I asked how long they'd been making such charming Rieslings this far from the Mosel, and the fellow told me I was drinking their introductory effort. I noted it was an impressive first try, and he proudly admitted they'd had some help. An up and coming talent, Fran Austin, who makes wines (but not the Arras Sparkling) at Bay of Fires, had been contracted to do the wine-making.

The grapes were grown in sandy soils, "rubbish" the fellow called them, implying the low quality of the dirt might be responsible for the high quality of the fruit. When I asked about vineyard pests, he offered us stories of an ongoing combat with thieving possums they were battling with with owl boxes and .22 caliber rifles. I had actually meant phylloxera, but I suppose possums are a more romantic foe.

It was when we thanked our host and made to continue on our way that I heard again the name I'd heard rumored of in Melbourne; it was nothing more than a whisper that chased us further up river.

Notes from the Field

At McDuff's suggestion, I left the safe, fortress-eque confines of the Lab and ventured out into the world to meet Guiseppe Vajra and taste the wines of his family's domain.

I need to get out more often.

Guiseppe was charming, engaging and extremely knowledgeable about his family's vineyards and viticulture. The wines he poured -- from an unexpected Piemontese Riesling to the single-vineyard Bricco delle Viole Barolo -- were exceptional.

The Vajras farm organically and pick by hand. The wines are beautifully expressive of their terroir. And they have some sensational parcels, including vineyards in the Serralunga across the autostrada from Bruno Giacosa's famed Le Rocche del Falletto.

The 2007 Langhe Bianco is made from Riesling vines that Guiseppe's father planted in the early 80s. When I said I hadn't realized that Riesling was allowed by the Langhe DOC, Guiseppe told me, "They allow it, but it's not recommended." Should be. This is sensational wine, a very serious dry white, and a definitive triumph of vineyard over varietal. The finish is so purely mineral that you can differentiate between limestone and granite.

The domain's tête de Cuvée is a single vinyard Barolo, the Bricco delle Viole planted just after the Second World War. Guiseppe poured the current release, the 2004 vintage. The wine is densely structured, with layers of fennel spice, red fruit, dark berries and a clear vineyard signature. It is very young, but unlike other "traditional" Barolos I know, this is extremely approachable even now.

The whole catalog is worth seeking out, especially the rustic Langhe Rosso Kye made from Friesa, a traditional Piedmont grape perhaps related to Nebbiolo. And if you get a chance to taste with Guiseppe, you don't want to miss that opportunity.

Elvino sourced Piemontese cheeses and fresh bread to pair with the wines. And Bart Miali's shop and inventory is looking better every time I stop in.

I will definitely try to make a habit of getting out of the Lab.

Real Change

As part of our EVOLUTION study, we tasted the 2006 Pyramid Valley Vineyards Lebecca Riesling six months ago and then again presently.

Given the declared point of the exercise was to chart how a wine evolves over time, I'm pleased to report, we're already seeing some noticeable change.

Unlike 6 months prior when the nose was tight and the wine needed quite a bit of air to show, this is immediately open and expressive on the nose. A fresh, sweet mix of clover honey, apple peel and lime pith. In the mouth, it is less obviously linear, but more dense in every direction than before. The honeyed Gravenstein apple and kiwi fruit is backed by a bright, Mandarin acidity. There's still a briny note on the finish, but it's less obvious, and the minerality has been obscured by sweet.

This is even more like Mosel Riesling than before. Blind, I would have bet the farm on Germany as the source. It would seem that some of the wine's prior uniqueness has been buried in a bit of sweet babyfat. It is still exquisitely balanced, but the nuance of secondary elements has been eclipsed by fruit and glycerin (there is a palpable viscosity in the mouthfeel that built in the glass over time).

I am very interested to see how this goes over the next couple bottles, and it's good enough that I'm already formulating excuses for why I won't need to share with the staff. My hope is that the honeyed fruit retreats, that secondary elements emerge to provide layered and site-specific complexity to this already dense and delicious wine.

If you want to play along at home, K&L Wines has a few bottles of the 2006 left.

Evolution 2.0: Riesling Redux

Hard to believe six months have passed since we began our highly ambitious, long-term research programme (I prefer the pretentiousness of the British spelling) into the EVOLUTION of an individual wine. Regular readers will remember we set out to drink a single wine -- a white and a red -- every six months for a case's duration.

Back in July, we had the first bottle from our case of white, a 2006 Lebecca Riesling from Pyramid Valley Vineyards. It was a spatlese-style Riesling (pre-global warming) with honeyed, green apple fruit and laced with a salty minerality. The full notes are available here.

A brief and furious controversy erupted over whether it was appropriate to lay down a New World Riesling. A reader commented: "I don't know of anyone intentionally ageing NZ riesling in their cellars (German and Austrian are by far the two choices)."

At the Lab we remain true to the original definition of "maverick" (the new definition seems to involve panic, bad decision-making and humiliating loss, so we are definitely referring to the old definition), and we plan to solider on, see what happens when we intentionally age New Zealand Riesling.

Cause we're crazy.

Results from evolution white # 2 up next.

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.

Don't go into the light, Carol Anne

If you're up to date in your Lab Reports, you'll know that we have been bombarding a bottle of Pacific Rim Dry Riesling with Ultraviolet radiation in hopes of recreating the "lightstrike" wine fault under laboratory conditions (the original FINDING FAULT Lab post is here).

We subjected the bottle to 10-12 hours of UV-light each day over a six day period.

Now there's an argument to be made that we'd have been better off irradiating our wine in a tanning bed. As it may be that radiation in the UVA/B spectrum is more effective in this regard.

But we're a scientific lab, not a tanning salon. So we went with what we had, namely, a SterilGARD III ADVANCE class II Biological Safety Cabinet.

Lightstrike occurs through a reductive process which creates a number of sulfuric compounds, among them something called thiols. Thiols are the same chemical component used to give natural gas it's rank smell. They make old beer taste skunky. They actually make actual skunks smell skunky. Trying to get them into your wine is clearly ill-advised.

So we held our noses (figuratively; wouldn't be much of a test if we'd actually held our noses) and blindly tasted our thiol-thick wine against one not similarly abused.

It wasn't easy to tell the good from the bad. The wine from the sterilization tank had a strong odor of rubber bands, and a burnt rubber taste apparent on the palate as well.

When not abused the Pacific Rim Riesling is a competent, if somewhat boring, expression of the grape. (I believe we already mentioned it's a "great value"). A nose of mandarin orange and citrus zest with hints of honey and straw. A straightforward palate of pear (sweet) and lime (acid).

Someone did note the irony that the goût de lumière was slightly phenolic. And so could almost pass as goût de pétrole in a Riesling. We've asked the Baker company to alert us if they have an upswing of sales of SterilGARD cabinets in the Mosel river valley.

Goût de lumière

The "taste of light." Sounds sexy doesn't it? Like a gift from the fairies. Or a something you eat on the way to Nirvana. But goût de lumière -- lightstrike in English -- is actually a fault that makes tainted wine taste like rancid rubber bands or damp sheep.

Amongst the flaws in our FINDING FAULT series, we voted LIGHTSTRIKE as the flaw with the best name (see THIS NOTE on voting at the Lab).

According to wikipedia:

Lightstruck wines are those that have had excessive exposure to ultraviolet light... Very delicate wines, such as Champagnes, are generally worst affected, with the fault causing a wet cardboard or wet wool type flavor and aroma... The fault explains why wines are generally bottled in colored glass, which blocks the ultraviolet light, and why wine should be stored in dark environments.

Good to know why wine bottles are green. But what does lightstrike really taste like?

At the Lab, we are determined to find out. So we jammed a bottle of Pacific Rim, NV, Dry Riesling into a SterilGARD III ADVANCE class II Biological Safety Cabinet (manufactured by the Baker Company) that we use to sterilize instruments. We plan to bombard the bottle with a massive dose of ultraviolet radiation (254nm/UVC), and then taste it blind against a bottle stored carefully in our cellar.

No doubt, several questions come quickly to mind. First of which must surely be: Who makes non-vintage Riesling?

Randall Grahm is who. Grahm is the eccentric genius of Bonny Doon Vineyard. He has scaled back his business significantly to focus on the production of single-vineyard wines driven by our old friend the magic mud. Which means this non-vintage Riesling is a vineyard by-product. Whether or not this is left-over juice is pure speculation on my part, but I do know that this wine is made from grapes grown in Washington state and then blended with additional wine sourced from the Mosel region in Germany. You can buy it at Trader Joe's for $9.

What? It's not like we were going to irradiate something expensive.

You won't want to miss the results. Stay tuned...



(girl with wings: © George Mayer | Dreamstime.com )

Required Reading

I don't really have a sense of the audience for the Lab's research. I know my mom doesn't read the Lab Reports. She doesn't have a computer. Beyond that, I'm in the dark. As such, I apologize in advance to the more cultured members of our community who won't find today's report particularly newsworthy.

But for the rest of you, my delightful, unlettered masses...

I've never bought into the bollocks that the best things in life are free, but Terry Theise's catalogs are the exception. Theise finds wines by profession, mostly German and Austrian Rieslings and grower Champagnes. His catalogs of these discoveries offer some of the best, most entertaining and accessible wine writing on the planet. With Theise, you'll learn to decode German labels, to tell the difference between Cramant and Mesnil, and most importantly, you'll gain deep insights into why you should stop drinking industrial champagne. Of course, Theise has an ulterior motive. He wants you to drink his wines.

But, in my experience, that's a good thing.

You can download the catalogs here.

Cold Play

We've all done it. You grab a bottle from the cellar and whack it into the freezer to put a quick chill on it. Then halfway through dessert, you realize with a start, "Oh, [deleted]! The bottle in the freezer!" You race back to the kitchen to discover you've made Gavi granita. So what to do?

I could tell you this experiment was prompted by scientific curiosity. But the truth is elsewhere. Couple weeks ago, I realized we had totally forgotten an employee birthday -- which is always hard on Lab morale. So I jammed a Pinot Gris into the freezer and whipped up some vanilla fondant for a Sarah Lee poundcake I found in the fridge. The cake was a big hit and saved the day, but it wasn't until someone pointed out that Pinot Gris was the classic pairing for Sarah Lee poundcake that I remembered the bottle in the freezer.

In the kitchen, a debate broke out -- not uncommon here -- about whether the thawed wine would suffer any ill effect from being frozen. I cut the debate short -- also not uncommon -- pointing out there is no need to argue about something if there was an empirical proof available.

So we put a bottle of Chateau Ste Michelle/Dr Loosen, Riesling Eroica, 2006, in the freezer and froze it. We let the bottle thaw completely and then tasted it side by side and blind against an identical bottle that we had not similarly abused.

There was a minor color variation between the two, the Left bottle just slightly more pale than the Right. The Right bottle was a little more expressive on the nose, but the fruit in the two bottles was nearly identical: pear, nectarine and pineapple. The residual sugar was somewhat more prominent in the Right. And the faint mineral element on the finish was a little bitter on the Left.

Given what happened with the wine we left in the hot car, when the blindfolds came off we were all a little relieved to discover that the Right bottle was the "right" bottle. The Left had been frozen and thawed. But in truth, the Left bottle was hardly ruined. If you hadn't been looking for the distinctions, you might not have noticed.

Lab Conclusion: Don't toss that frozen Chardonnay into the bin. Just serve it a little later in the evening. Or pour it for people who asked if you had any White Zinfandel. They'll never know.

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.

Evolution 1.0 : One Down Eleven To Go

This is a 2006 Riesling from Pyramid Valley Vineyards in New Zealand. Like all the wines from their Grower Collection, it's a single vineyard wine, in this case "Lebecca Vineyard." It's an Old World style spatlese (which means the grapes were picked late in the harvest) from a New World producer. And in the interest of full disclosure, I know the people who made it. I am an unabashed fan of their wines.

I've tasted this once before, and enjoyed it. You didn't think I was going to commit the Lab to a box of booze for the next 6-10 years without some prior research, did you? (see my prior post) As it turns out, it was better than I remembered.

This arrives on the palate with a luscious, honeyed texture, supporting bright, green apple fruit. There's a coy, almost elusive, minerality. A tantalizing, feminine acidity ties it all up on the finish. The nose was tight at first, yielding only some green fruit, and fading white flower. Then after 20 minutes in the glass, a briny, perfumed scent took over, something that reminds you of climbing on the rocks at high tide. During the same time, the chalky, mineral elements came out of hiding and swirled around the fruit. This is elegantly integrated wine, with great balance and structure.

I'm not at all sad about having to drink 11 more. Next one in early January.

Ted & Kristen Talley import this into the U.S. through their Terra Firma Wine Co. If it's not available in your neighborhood, they might be able to help you out.