Not Ungrafted

Regular readers know I'm quietly, diligently working on my Ungrafted Manifesto.

As I get little time away from my many responsibilities at the Lab, it is taking a little while longer to complete than I originally expected. And let's not kid ourselves. Manifestos are not that easy to write.

As part of my research, I recently happened upon some photographs of "grafting" -- which is not "ungrafting" but related. These photos were shot by Vincent Dancer at the Domaine Thomas Morey in Chassagne-Montrachet.

I love Vincent Dancer's wines. He makes stunning Burgundy. White, in particular. But I'm a real fan of his often haunting photography.

The rest of the grafting images are here.

The whole photo blog is here.

Wither Thou Pumpest?

No doubt you've been sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for the results on this one. The excitement at the Lab has been palpable. Folks around here haven't been this geared up since we got the Lab rats drunk on Eiswein at last year's Christmas party.

We pulled the two bottles of 2007 Root: 1, Sauvignon Blanc from the fridge where they'd been stored. We let them sit for a full 96 hours before re-tasting. You may remember (or you can read the set-up HERE) we pumped one with a Vacu Vin pump to the full vacuum capacity of the device. The second bottle we pumped only half that much.

The results were... hardly conclusive. The truth is the two wines were nearly indistinguishable one from the other. However, both were remarkable given they'd been open for 4 days. The fruit on the nose was bigger, but had perhaps lost a little complexity over the period. The palate was bright with citric acid, gala apple and a concentrated, mineral core that stretched out like Mr Fantastic on the lingering finish. A recognizable grapefruit flavor had emerged in both.

If I were really pressed I might argue that the acid/mineral mix of the fully-pumped bottle -- let's call it the grapefruit -- had turned a little bitter. But it was a marginal difference, far from conclusive.

I hate it when science is ambiguous.

Pump It Up

In past experiments, we've tried to reach some functional conclusions regarding wine preservation. After extensive, though hardly exhaustive, trials, we remain convinced that not preserving the wine (i.e. finishing the bottle) is the strategy par excellence.

That said, we remain curious about something we learned along the way. Namely, that pumping short of the full vacuum (or at least less than the manufacturers suggested level) will provide improved preservation results with next-day wine.

So we opened two bottles of 2007 Root: 1, Sauvignon Blanc, tasted both, and then poured off 250 ml of each bottle. The first we pumped with a Vacu Vin wine preserver until it "clicked" (10 pumps). The second we pumped half as many times (5). Then we returned both bottles to the fridge for storage.

Given we found the wine on sale for $7 (it usually sells for $11), it was remarkable on a quality/price ratio. A nose of passion fruit, lime zest and wet grass. The palate was zippy citric acid and gala apple. The wine had a long lingering mineral finish. If tasted blind, I think I would have picked this as a mid-range to high-end Sancerre.

In fact, Root: 1 is a joint-venture from Chilean producer Viña Ventisquero and Seattle-based importer/genius marketing company Click Wine Group.

Root: 1 is sub-titled [The Original Ungrafted]. Not sure what they mean by "original" but it is notable that in South American appelations it's possible to produce a blend of multiple vineyard blends from all ungrafted vines. This is terrific table wine.

We'll pull the samples from the fridge in a couple days. Don't go away.

Look What the Trojan Horse Dragged In

We've started a new quest at the Lab. We are on a obsessive mission to drink wine made from ungrafted vines. What started innocently as a historical thought-experiment about pre-phylloxera wines has swelled into a relentless search for the Ungrafted Grail. Careful readers will have noted the occasional hints in this direction. A full-fledged Ungrafted Manifesto is forthcoming.

Thus far, our search has yielded a number of triumphs, and we will describe those in a later report. But I couldn't resist a special mention of a recent discovery.

Gaia Wines, Thalassitis, Santorini, 2007. Thalassitis is made from the Assyrtiko grape native to the Greek isle of Santorini. Gaia (say: yeah-ha) grows theirs in a vineyard of ungrafted vines more than 70 years old. A Greek wine-making tradition goes back to 4000 years. The Cult of Dionysus, that Minoan import that flourished as a Grecian Mystery Cult, might represent the world's first assemblage of wine wankers. More recently, BFC aficionados will remember the brief reign of a Greek sparkler in the Bubbledome.

I wasn't sure what to expect from a grape I've never before tasted. Assyrti who? But I wasn't expecting the smell of brand new Firestone tires. In the mouth, it's bright, energetic citric acids (lime and tangerine), rubber (I swear you can taste it, but probably just the strong olfactory suggestion) and a core of creamy apple fruit. Burnt match on the finish. Weird descriptors, I acknowledge (the petrol-y smells might result from the black, rubber stopper Gaia uses). But I find this fascinating and delicious. The mouthfeel is amazing. Like I would imagine a dollop of liquid mercury might feel (before it killed you). Or like a weird, funky blend of Riesling, Sauvingnon Blanc and Silver Surfer Spit.

(trojan horse: A project by Scott Kildall & Victoria Scott. Rights are protected under a Creative Commons license. Do not reproduce without attribution. The artists have no affiliation with the Rational Denial Lab. For more info see www.nomatter.org.)

A Tale of Two Corks

A Postscript to the last Report.

We were impressed by Tarlant's ungrafted Vigne d'Antan we opened the other day, so much so that we decided to open another one last night at the Lab.

Sure, this is a wine to get involved with. It's complex. It's big. More like White Burgundy from Puligny-Montrachet. It has that ungrafted hallmark of pitch-perfect integration, intense core and site-specific precision. There are many reasons to open another bottle.

But we opened this one mostly because we thought there would be opportunity for some cool, time-lapse photography. The bottle we opened previously was disgorged in December, 2004. The second bottle was disgorged a year ago tomorrow.

At the Lab, we often source Champagne at auction. With non-vintage champagnes, it's often difficult, if not impossible, to know their age. One of the few clues is "cork behavior". Older corks do not expand. Young corks expand quickly. And wines that are in between young and old (disgorged more than a year ago, but less than say... three, four years ago) sometimes expand, but slowly.

We noticed the cork from the older bottle never expanded, retaining it's compressed mushroom shape. We thought the younger bottle might expand over 10-15 minutes and give us an opportunity to chronicle the transformation.

No such luck. The cork screamed out of the bottle as soon as the cage was removed, expanding to its current fatness (that is the technical term, by the way) almost immediately. We missed our photo-journalistic opportunity. But we drank the Champagne anyway.

The younger cousin is delicious, though far less mineral in character than the prior bottle. It has a lees-y nose with faint pear fruit, biscuit and some notes of oak. The attack is citric acid that emerges as distinctly lemon as the golden apple flavor evolves mid-palate. There's an almost tannic bite before a long, lingering chalky finish.

It has an adolescent, nervy energy that would likely benefit from some cellar maturity. Maybe in a year or so we can capture the cork swell on camera...

Ironically, we opened a bottle of Bollinger Special Cuvee last night as well. That cork did expand slowly over a 10 to 15 minutes period, but at that point we were half in the bag from other experiments and no one remembered to take the pictures.

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).

More Cold Play

The reasons for doing this experiment were many. But first and foremost is the massive spike in traffic for the Lab website the last time we used "Cold Play" in the title of a post. I'm thinking the next 5 posts will be called "Britney".

But it's also true that after we tested the preservative qualities of inert gas and bottle pumps, we were left with a few unanswered questions. Most notably the one asked by my buddy Gary who wanted to know whether an open bottle of red holds up better in the fridge or on the kitchen counter.

In theory, cold is a useful preservative. Leave some chicken out on the counter for a couple days if you don't believe me. But there's also a persistent belief in some oenological corners that too much cold will deaden the fruit in red wine.

So we went back to the Bodegas Olivares, Altos de la Hoya, Jumilla Monastrell, 2006. It's terrific wine from ungrafted vines and costs as little as a gallon of organic milk, which makes it perfect for experimentation.

We replicated our prior protocols, pouring off 300 ml from each of two bottles. The first we gassed, recorked and left on the counter. The second, we gassed, recorked and put in the fridge. The temperature on the bottom shelf measured a crisp 38°. We let both sit for 5 days. We let both bottles come back to room temperature before tasting.

It was no contest.

The fridged bottle was the best showing of this wine so far (and we've had a fair few at the lab recently). Black cherry, ripe fig and cardamom spice. It was equally impressive in the mouth, energetic, gripping tannins and that ungrafted hallmark: inextricably intertwined fruit and rocks.

Meanwhile, the countered bottle was showing a lot of alcohol volatility and overripe, approaching rancid, fruit. The complexity in the palate had vanished. Whatever excitement this bottle once held had set sail for other ports.

Clearly, much more testing needs to be done. This effort is merely anecdotal. Please feel free to further our cause with your own refrigeration anecdotes.

If we get a big pile of them I can have one of the research assistants compile all of them into a shiny binder. They love making binders.

Gas Versus No Gas

For this experiment, we uncorked and tasted two bottles of Bodegas Olivares, Altos de la Hoya, Jumilla Monastrell, 2006, detecting no discernible difference between the two wines (see yesterday's tasting notes).

We poured off exactly 300 ml from each bottle. We sealed one with Private Preserve. The other we reclosed with a Vacuvin pump. Then we waited 72 hours before re-tasting the wines.

The idea behind both approaches is the same. Get rid of the oxygen. Either pump it out, or replace it with a heavier-than-air mix of oxygen-less gas. According to the Private Preserve website, their special blend is "pure air with no oxygen," a semantically challenged definition to be sure.

The wine preserved with inert gas had a beautiful nose, with no discernible fade. The pumped bottle, however, had slipped a little. There was also a warm-alcohol volatility present (even though both were poured after 10 minutes in the fridge). The pumped bottle was drinking well, no fade noted in the fruit. But the chalky, mineral finish had gone slightly bitter (no doubt from oxidation). On the palate, the gassed bottle was better again. There was a noticeable freshness to the fruit, especially when tasted side by side against the pump. The finish wasn't bitter, but -- and I'm not sure why -- the tannins seemed a little sharper, more pronouncedly green than both the prior tasting and the pumped bottle.

Neither device "failed" per se. The inert gas certainly seemed to outperform the pump in this trial, but the pumped bottle was still very drinkable, with only a slight fade in aroma and taste.

It is perhaps worth noting that the Lab has consistently argued the best approach to the dilemma of wine preservation is to avoid it altogether. If you drink the whole bottle, there's nothing to preserve.

The Day After

Summer is over and we are back to the grind of full-time science at the Lab.

At a recent planning meeting, several storage issues made it on our agenda. Most noteworthy were several proposed experiments with a focus on storing wine after it has been opened. We plan to test effectiveness of air pumps and inert gas. We also want to see what effect, if any, storage temperature has on already opened bottle of wine.

For our first round of tests, we found a few bottles of 2006 Bodegas Olivares, Altos de la Hoya, Jumilla Monastrell (Mourvedre).

The sandy soils of Jumilla proved inhospitable to our old foe, the Dry Leaf Devastator, and many of the vineyards survived the Phylloxera plague unscathed. So the region is home to some of the oldest, ungrafted vines in the world. The Altos de la Hoya comes from grapes grown in an 11 hectare vineyard with some vines planted as far back as 1872. The importers claim that the 2006 vintage in Jumilla was the best in a decade.

Ungrafted, old Mourvedre from a great vintage. It's astonishing that you can buy this wine for less than $10. It will make you rethink your first growth Bordeaux collection.

Aromas of sweet, smokey plums with background notes of dusty cobblestones and Wrigley's spearmint chewing gum emerge with some time in the glass. On the palate, more plum and rich, ripe figs with hints of campfire and bacon. Underlying this is an amazing core of sweet, chalky minerality. Given their youth, the tannins are surprisingly soft and chewy.

This deep purple-y garnet wine has the lively tension and balanced integration often found in wines made from own-rooted vines (this is also on the Lab's agenda).

We opened a couple over the weekend to test. Results later this week.


(image: © Carlos Sanchez Pereyra | Dreamstime.com)

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)