Handyman Needed

A brief follow up to yesterday's post:

If anyone wants to argue against the Bollinger, La Côte aux Enfants, as a novelty wine, they're gonna have to start by explaining the closure (see photo at right).

This is the only wine I've ever opened with a pair of needle-nose pliers and a screwdriver.

It Takes a Village

Our mad quest for mud resumes.

If you're a newcomer to our work at the Lab, you can brush up on our Dirt Search Mission Statment here.

Today, we'll be searching for that elusive terroir in the Champagne village of Aÿ. With a tiny population of just over 4000, Aÿ is located at the base of the southern slope of the Montagne de Reims just Northeast of Epernay.

Aÿ is renowned for Pinot Noir. Its red wines were said to be the favorite of the French King, Henri IV. So why then, you may soon be wondering, are we drinking a Chardonnay from Aÿ in the Lab today, a Blanc de Blanc from Gaston Chiquet?

Because Peter Liem, in his truly outstanding Champagne blog, recently wrote that he, "found that this Chardonnay helps me to understand Aÿ’s Pinots better, through a commonality of character and personality." He cites fabled importer Terry Thiese as noting, Chiquet's Blanc de Blanc, "isn’t so much a variant on Chardonnay as it is another dialect of Aÿ.”

So we thought it might be illuminating to drink Chiquet's Blanc de Blanc d'Aÿ, NV, alongside a Pinot Noir from the same village. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find still red wine from Champagne in the U.S. But not impossible. There is an odd (some might argue "novelty") wine from Bollinger, La Côte aux Enfants, Coteaux Champenois (1999), that occasionally appears on local shelves. La Côte aux Enfants is produced from a single vineyard in Aÿ, planted exclusively with Pinot. The wine is only produced in what some Frenchie deems an "exceptional year."

This Chiquet is one of my favorite non-vintage Champagnes. This bottle has a yeasty, slightly sourdough, nose mixed with almond butter and lemon verbena. Beautifully complex and linear. A nervy, citric acid highlights the attack, then cherry-apple fruit swirls around a serious mineral core. This finish is beautiful, crisp and chalky. (Disgorged 5/1/07).

As I'm actually one of those who would argue the Bollinger is a novelty wine, I was surprised by how good it was. A nose of plum and cherries and a beguiling earthy quality. On the palate, the fruit was forward, but not over-powering. Plum, black cherry and mineral water. With peppery tannins and a gentle, chalky mineralité. Although the overall impression was that of feminine delicacy, the various elements seemed bound together by an energetic, almost forceful, tension.

Did we find our Grail in these two wines from Aÿ?

Tough to say with any precision. It was hard to avoid discovering some commonality in the mineral aspects of the two wines. Both had an almost sensual, cherry chalkiness to them. Both seemed to possess that alchemical suggestion of a specific place and time.

But were those neighboring places really there?

Or mere projections...

Some Welcome Perspective

Yesterday, I took time out from our usual scientific reportage to write about a little personality tic of mine. My heartfelt thanks to everyone for the outpouring of sympathy and support. Your notes, cards and messages are greatly appreciated.

I'm happy to report that today, I'm feeling much better.

Mostly because my own issues seem almost trivial in the face of this guy's collection of 4180 little metal caps and army men made from Champagne closures.

I thought I was bad, but this guy is a freak. I do like his fancy website, though.

Schadenfreude is never pretty.

I Might Have OCD

A friend once taught me how to make these little chairs from the cage the holds the cork in a Champagne bottle. I discovered that making them provides the perfect interval for tasting Champagne. I open, pour and taste the wine. Then I make a little chair before going back to the glass. This allows the wine some time in the air. Time that it likely wouldn't otherwise get. Especially if it's any good. In which case, you have to be quick yourself if you expect to get any. Good Champagne doesn't last long at the Lab.

Apparently, obsessive-compulsive disorder is a chronic anxiety disorder sometimes characterized by obsessive rituals and tasks (like, say, making tiny chairs). OCD is often confused with OCPD, obsessive-compulsive personality disorder which is characterized by a general psychological inflexibility, rigid conformity to rules and procedures and/or excessive orderliness. One look at my desk and you know this is not my problem.

But I fear the tiny chair making is getting a little out of hand. I'm starting to get some weird looks in the halls.

BFC#5: A Lightning Bolt from Zeus!

Stunned.

No other way to describe it. We were stunned. All of us. None could believe that we'd all voted for a sparkling wine made from an antique grape we'd never heard of. Moschofilero? When the blindfolds came off -- we have a slightly unorthodox approach to blind tasting at the Lab, more like waterboarding really -- every jaw dropped. There before us, an international smörgåsbord of sparkling wines, and we had all picked the Greek as our favorite.

Tselepos Amalia Brut, NV. Nose was musty and graphitic with faint hint of apple. Elegant and balanced on the palate with nervy acid, delicate, honeyed orchard fruit and a clean, crisp stony finish.

So Amalia will be back to take on Goisot in the Bubbledome.

The rest of the competition, in order of finish:

Gruet Brut, NV. Strongly effervescent. The cork took out a chunk of ceiling plaster. Fruity nose of white flower and melon. In the mouth, a little flabby but not without some energetic acid.

Toso Brut, NV. Weird. And not in a good way. Tropical fruit and honeysuckle and a faint, almost Rieslingesque petrol quality. Less complex in the mouth, melon with some almond and a flat and dull finish. Very strange expression of pinot/chardonnay blend.

Taltarni Brut Taché, NV. Almost exactly that unique, rusty pink color of Dom Perignon Rosé. Beyond the color, this was disappointing. Closed, yeasty nose. Slightly overripe, apple fruit and tart, attention-demanding acid. This isn't bad as much as it's generic.

We all thought the Zipang Sparkling Sake was out of category, but really interesting. So we pulled it from the cage before it suffered any real damage. We'll bring it back for sushi night in the Dome. Coming soon.


(passport image © Icefields | Dreamstime.com)

BFC #5: Olympic-style Cagematch

To commem-
orate the spirit of the Olympics, I suggested to the boys that we host an event in the Brooklynguy Bubbledome with an international flair, something aimed at fostering understanding across cultural divides and promoting the ideals of world peace.

They were having none of it. So instead we're holding an old fashioned CAGE MATCH in the Dome tomorrow.

Five will enter. Only one will exit. And the winner will earn a shot at the current BFC champion, Goisot Cremant in BFC #6.

You'll notice though, I did manage to sneak in my internationalist agenda via the fight card.

The competitors (btw, I've been practicing trying to make my digital photos look like old, cheap polaroids. I'm getting pretty good, I think):

From Tasmania, Australia: Taltarni Brut Taché, NV. I've seen this on a lot of restaurant wine lists lately, universally overpriced. So I bought one at the shop for $14. Traditional 3 grape, Champagne blend. Bottle fermented. Taché means "stained". So the wine is essentially "pinked" with red wine blended into the liqueur d'expédition.

From Mendoza, Argentina, Toso Brut, NV. Only $10! A Blanc de Blanc (though the label doesn't say so), from Pascual Toso, a winery established by the eponymous Italian in the 19th century. Secondary fermentation in tanks (method charmant).

From Peloponesus, Greece, Domaine Tselepos Amalia Brut, NV. $19. An original Olympian. Made from a traditional Grecian grape, the Moschophilero.

From New Mexico, USA, Gruet Brut, NV. $13. I see this all the time. And I walk past this all the time. Except today. Today I thought, let's see how New Mexico holds up against the world.

From Fushimi, Japan, Zipang Sparkling Sake, NV, $6 (250 ml). This should be interesting? Naturally carbonated rice wine. One of the kids from our neuro-chemistry group brought this back to the Lab when we sent him for sushi from the Japanese convenience store up the street. Figured why not toss it in the cage?

Rules are blind-tasting with scorecards and no eye-gouging. Results will be posted as soon as they're tabulated. It'll be soon, but the new kid in accounting who's adding up the scores isn't exactly the sharpest stick in the pile.

(If you're new to the exciting world of no-holds barred, sparkling wine fighting, you can read about the origins of the Bubbledome here. Or search keyword: Bubbledome for the whole exciting history.)

image credit © Claudio Bertoloni | Dreamstime.com.

In Memoriam

J Randall Forbes, 1961-2008.

The Lab has lost a good friend. He will be dearly missed.