Archive
Wine Weekend of Ups and Downs
The life of an oenophile is never dull – of course, if an oenophile chooses such.
UP
Let’s talk about “ups” first.
Sine Qua Non. The legendary Sine Qua Non. The Sine Qua Non winery is unique in many ways. First and foremost, Sine Qua Non wines are unique. Of course, every winemaker is sure that his or her wines are unique. But for Sine Qua Non, these are not just bragging words. Every vintage, a different set of wines is produced, and wines do not or rarely repeat year after year. Each wine has a label designed by Manfred Krankl, who owns the winery together with his wife Elaine. And the wines are impossible to get – I had to wait for 10+ years to move from the waiting list to the mailing list.
My sister-in-law and her husband were visiting over the weekend. They both enjoy wine very much – which is a perfect reason to get out a special bottle. Sine Qua Non is better known for its Rhone-style reds, but they produce white wines as well. One of the first wines in my allocation was Sine Qua Non white wine. Communal notes on the internet seem to indicate that SQN white wines shouldn’t be aged for too long, so I decided that 4 years is a good age for this wine, to avoid any possible regrets (who am I kidding – there are always regrets when it comes to wine).
2019 Sine Qua Non Distenta 1 California White Wine (15.3% ABV) is a blend of 41% Roussanne, 26% Chardonnay, 14% Petit Manseng, 12% Viognier and 7% Muskat (Gelber Muskateller), fermented in barrel and matured on its lees, 23 months in 64% new French oak. The sublime nose of whitestone fruit, herbs, and flowers, with a distant hint of tropical fruit. And the palate, the bouquet… As a child, I loved to sing, and I spent some time in the chorus. I was perfectly fine singing in unison, but for the life of me, I could never do the canon, the subtype of polyphonic singing, where each singer has their own melody, and those melodies harmoniously combine together. This wine delivered such a canon singing – beautiful notes of sage, eucalyptus, tobacco, and whitestone fruit were changing into tropical fruit with a touch of bright honey notes. Somehow, it was possible to taste both profiles at the same time. I know I’m not describing it well, but this was the wine I really didn’t want to end… (Drinkability: 9)
By the way, an added bonus – it appears that I never had the Gelber Muskateller grape – and now I can unexpectedly increase my grape count.
DOWN
Over the years, I got two bottles of red wine from Newton Vineyards, a well-respected California winery, as presents, both from the same 2010 vintage, and both identical. I know the producer’s name, but it seems that I only tasted Newton Chardonnay before, and I have no memories of tasting their red wines.
Both bottles were gifted by the sister-in-law and her husband I just mentioned, so I thought their visit was a perfect opportunity to enjoy this wine together.
And so I opened the bottle of 2010 Newton The Puzzle Spring Mountain District Napa Valley (14.5% ABV, 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Cabernet Franc, 18% Petit Verdot, 4% Malbec).
And the bottle was corked.
I just recently mentioned in one of the social media discussions that I rarely encounter corked California wines. I guess I jinxed it… The cork faint was ever so slightly noticeable on the nose, and the palate kind of seemed okay, so I even decanted it and we even tried drinking it. The decanting made the corked nature of the wine even more apparent, and I pulled the second bottle.
The second bottle was not corked, and it was drinkable. However, it was a bit underwhelming. The fruit was there, it was possible to taste the cassis, but considering that this was a Californian wine, it showed leaner than expected. I would generally consider that Californian wine of such level need at least 20 years to develop, and under normal circumstances I would leave the second bottle alone for another 5-7 years, but oh well. We did enjoy it, of course, I was just hoping we would enjoy it more. (Drinkability: 8- )
STILL DOWN
I’m not going in chronological order here. The Newton red was planned to be the main wine to serve with dinner. As a “pre-gaming”, I gleefully pulled out the 2018 Alto Moncayo Veraton Campo de Borja (15.5% ABV). I opened a bottle of this 100% Garnacha last year, and it was absolutely spectacular from the get-go – succulent cherries and layers of pleasure. I loved the wine so much that it was included in the top two dozen list of 2022 wines as number 13.
Feeling great about myself, I opened the bottle and poured wine into the glasses. At the first tiniest sip, instead of excitement, my instant thought was “ohhh nooo, why is it so sweet???”. I also instantly knew that I’m in trouble with my sister-in-law, as she stopped drinking California Pinot Noirs for being too sweet… And her reaction was exactly what I was afraid of. After the first sip, she raised her head from the glass, looked at me inquisitively, and said with a wry smile “but why is it so sweet?”. This is when we put this bottle aside and proceeded with The Puzzle – and you just read how swimmingly well it went.
Truly, whatever goes up will go down.
AND UP AGAIN
Whatever went down still has a chance to go up.
The very next day, Veraton somewhat solidified at its core, the sweetness subsided, and the structure started to appear. On the third day, the wine was as delicious as I was expecting it to be – succulent ripe cherries, juicy and generous, with crunchy acidity and perfect balance. (Drinkability: 8+).
Here you go, my friends. Another weekend in wine – sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. With the exception of the corked bottle, which is never okay – but as my sales team always said, “it comes with the territory” – it was a great wine weekend, even with all the ups and downs. How was yours?
Rare Grapes, Obscure Tasting
What is your take on wines made from rare, unknown grapes? I can tell you about mine – I love them.
I have two reasons for that. Well, it might be even just one, but with two sides, I guess. First, I’m a wine geek. As a wine geek, I love tasting each and every type and style of wine, made from whatever grapes they are. I’m willing to taste absolutely any wine at least once. After the opinion is formed, this might be the first and the last time, but nevertheless, I’m willing to try anything.
The second reason is that I’m not only a geek, I’m also a collector. I like collecting experiences. As such, for example, I keep track of the US states and world countries I had a chance to taste the wine from. And I keep track of grapes I ever tasted, after being bitten by The Wine Century Club‘s bug. If you are reading this blog on a PC, look to the right side of the screen, and you will see “grape count” – this is the number of grapes I have tasted to date (if you are reading on the phone, just scroll down). With my goal of reaching 600 grapes, I can only increase the current count further by finding rare, obscure, unknown grapes to taste.
When I got an invitation to attend the Wines of Crete trade tasting, the key words which made me say “yes” was exactly that – “rare grapes” – there were lots of grapes mentioned in the invitation, and I didn’t recognize at least a half of them, so the opportunity to taste new grapes (and increase the count) was definitely enticing.
I have to tell you upfront – this was the most peculiar trade tasting I have ever attended. Being only an advanced amateur, if this makes any sense, I attend maybe about 10 trade tastings in a good year, so I wouldn’t pretend that “I’ve seen them all”. Nevertheless, I have a frame of reference for successful and unsuccessful wine tastings, for sure in my personal book – so when I tell you that this was the most peculiar one, I mean it. Let’s talk about it.
First, notwithstanding of any peculiarity, we need to acknowledge the wines of Crete. Any time a passionate wine lover has an encounter with a region that has a deep wine history, it creates an emotional response, almost awe. The wine history doesn’t go much deeper than it is on Crete – Crete, the largest island in Greece and 5th largest in Europe is the cradle of European winemaking, having its winemaking history spanning more than 4,000 years, going well beyond 1,500 BC.
Crete represents the first real wine culture in Europe. There is evidence of wine presses (first in Europe from about 1,600 BC), pressed grapes and stems, clay pots and amphorae. The wine was produced commercially, and it was praised by many poets. Shortly after the beginning of the first millennium, Crete became famous for producing sweet wine from sundried grapes, Vinum Passum. Crete wines reached Switzerland, France and Italy, and so did the cuttings of the Cretan vines.
From the 14th to 17th centuries, Crete became famous for producing sweet wines from Malvasia grapes (interesting tidbit: American Journal of Enology & Viticulture registered 49 different varieties of the Malvasia grape). Malvasia vines made it to Italy during the same timeframe.
Cretan winemaking history is not all warm and fuzzy. For almost 200 years Crete was under Turkish occupation, and wine production was truly minimized, mostly for family consumption only. Then at the beginning of the 20th century, immigrants brought Sultanina grapes to Crete – a.k.a. Thompson Seedless – not the grape you want to use in wine production. In 1972, Crete experienced the invasion of Phylloxera.
The rebirth of Cretan winemaking started in the 1990s, and today young winemakers continue looking for their own path, often using indigenous grapes to their advantage.
There are 4 mountain systems on Crete, the island of 160 miles long and about 40 miles wide. The majority of the vineyards on Crete are located on the mountain slopes, at altitudes from 800 to 3,000 ft. Mountains play an important role in protecting vineyards from the hot winds coming from Africa. The climate is warm Mediterranean with annual rainfall between 250 and 900 mm.
There are about 10,000 acres of vineyards on Crete, which are spread between 6 Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) and 7 Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO) winemaking regions. There are 36 wineries on Crete, producing about 4 million bottles of wine annually. There are 11 indigenous grape varieties growing on Crete (White: Vilana, Vidiano, Dafne, Thrapsathiri, Malvasia di Candia, Muscat of Spina, Plyto and Red: Kotsifali, Liatico, Mandilari/Mandilaria, Romeiko), as well as international varieties. And as I already told you before, these indigenous grapes were the main attraction for me.
Okay, so now I shared with you almost everything I learned about the rich history of the wines of Crete – let’s talk about the peculiar part.
Upon arrival at the tasting, I got a booklet listing all the wines which we would be tasting. The booklet was organized by grapes – but interestingly enough, the description of the wines didn’t include any producer names – just vintage, variety(ies), ABV, style of wine, and maturation notes. I never saw anything like that at any of the tastings – unless you maybe run a blind tasting, but never mind.
Next, we proceeded with the masterclass, where we learned about all the history and present day, and had an opportunity to taste 11 wines. While poured, all of the wine bottles were hidden inside the black pouches. In the presentation, there were no producer names mentioned – only grapes and regions were presented.
As we learned, this was not an oversight. As the event was sponsored by the European Union, it was the requirement not to mention the wine producers in the masterclass and in the tasting, so the producers not present at the tasting wouldn’t get upset.
I’ll let this sink in for a moment.
Think about it.
Now, let me ask you – how stupid, unbelievably stupid is it? [I guess this is what happens when lawyers run the business – I didn’t have to say it, but this is my blog, so I can].
I’m a blogger, and I’m only interested in education and tasting some obscure grapes. But let’s say you work at a restaurant. You taste the wine, you like it, and you would like to start offering it at your restaurant – but officially, you are not allowed to know the name of the wine you just tasted. Say what??? What is the point of this tasting? With this “blind tasting” move, you brilliantly hurt everyone – those who sent their wines for the tasting, and those who have not.
Okay, let’s get back to masterclass tasting.
First, we tasted 6 white wines, made from Vilana, Vidiano, Thrapsathiri, and Assyrtiko. Thrapsathiri was a new grape for me, the rest I had tasted before. I don’t believe I liked any of the white wines, unfortunately…
Wine #1 – Vilana grape
Acidic, lean, food-craving
Good
Wine #2 – Vidiano
sweet nose, acidic finish, interesting
Wine #3 – Vidiano
interesting, kind of flat, oily nose, reminiscent of Retsina
Wine #4 – Thrapsathiri
interesting, herbaceous, cut through acidity. Very acidic finish
Wine #5 – Assyrtiko
Smoke, almost moldy on the nose
Corked?
Wine #6 – Vidiano (oak aged)
Plump, oily, full-bodied, crispy finish
Next were 5 reds, made from Liatico, Kotsifali, Mandelaria, and Romeiko. Again, one new grape here – Romeiko. Wine #10 was strange but drinkable. I really loved the Romeiko wine, but this was somewhat of a curveball red wine – it was actually made in the “orange wine” style. Still, this was my favorite wine from the masterclass tasting.
Wine #7 – Liatico 2022
interesting nose, sweet oak
super-tart, tannic, lacks fruit, tart finish
Wine #8 – Liatico/Kotsifali 2016
smoke on the nose, smoke on the palate, insane acidity
Volatile acidity?
Wine #9 – 60% Kotsifali, 40% Mandelaria, 2015
Raisins on the nose, oak, tertiary aromas
flat, tannic, ohhh
Wine #10 – 60% Kotsifali, 40% Syrah, French/American oak aging, 2017
Brett? Spoiled egg level
This is actually drinkable, a little flat on fruit, but good overall
Wine #11 – Romeiko, red grape made as an orange wine
Excellent, delicious, good balance, harmonious, good fruit and acidity, fresh
We managed to convince the staff to show us the wines we tasted, at least some of them, so you can see some of the wines we tasted in the picture above.
Main room tasting had its own issues – it appears that due to some issues with the customs, instead of 64 wines only about 15 were present in the tasting. All black bagged, unfortunately. I tasted another grape I never had before – Plyto, and the wine was quite pleasant, but this is all I can tell you.
There you have it, my friends. For me personally, this was not a waste of time, as I managed to pick up three new grapes I never tasted before. But in the large schema of things, this was a wasteful tasting – and it is sad. The effort was put into organizing it, but would it really help to advance the Wines of Crete in the US – I doubt so very much.
I really hope my next wine tasting will fare better…
Drinking With Purpose
Drinking with purpose.
Okay, so what are we talking about here?
First of all, we are talking about wine. Usually, we drink wine for pleasure. Of course, sometimes people drink just for the buzz, to forget, to relax – there are many reasons why people use alcohol, but wine (I hope) stands a bit apart from the rest of the alcohol. Wine helps us to converse with friends, create memories, enhance our food experiences and simply derive pleasure from the simple moment of existence. Then what is this purpose I’m talking about?
Wine is the product of passion. At least this is how we, wine lovers, want to see it. Wine also enables passion. Not even passion, but passions. It solicits passions. Wine is surrounded by desire, obsession, exclusivity, mysticism, glamor, science, greed, mystery, art, and devotion, it evokes all of these and many other feelings and emotions. Wine allows everyone to find their own passion.
One such passion is collecting. Yes, some people are collecting the wine. In a lot of cases, they simply do this to feel superior to others, as they have something which other people want but can’t have. We can leave this aside, as this is a boring aspect of wine. Collecting unopened bottles is not the only thing to collect around wines.
The wine offers lots of artifacts. People collect unique bottles. People collect unique labels (hundreds of thousands of different wines are produced every year around the world – and many labels can change every year – think of an endless potential here). People collect champagne and sparkling wine bottle caps – this hobby even has an official name, placomusophilia. Peope collect corks and screwtops. I collect grapes and experiences.
Many, many, years ago I came across The Wine Century Club. No, you don’t have to be 100 years old or drink 100 years old wines. It is all about grapes. Anyone who tasted 100 different grapes (obviously, in wines) – don’t have to be individual grapes, blends are totally fine – is welcome to apply to become a member of the club. The application is honor-based (well, if you lie, your palate would be cursed forever – who would want to risk that), and you get the certificate sometime after you submit the application. Tasting the first 100 grapes was relatively easy. By the time I was done with the first 100, the club was already offering the 200 grapes level (Doppel), then 300 (Treble), 400 (Quattro), 500 (Pentavini), and now even 600 (Hexavin).
After I passed the 100 grapes level, hunting for the new grapes became an obsession, which I thoroughly documented on this very blog. I had friends reaching out and asking if I already had such and such grape. I spent countless hours looking for the grape information online, trying to figure out what grapes went into this particular wine from this particular vintage. Hunting down new grapes became drinking with purpose. I didn’t care if I would like the new wine or not – if it had the grapes I didn’t taste before, that was all I needed.
As I mentioned before, I collect not only grapes but also experiences. Wines are made in all of the 50 states in the USA. Wines are made at least in 60 countries around the world, maybe more. I have a personal goal to experience (read: taste) wines of all 50 states. I also would love to taste wines made in all the different countries around the world.
This is how I collect the grapes and experiences. And this is how drinking with purpose happens. A wine from the new state or a country – yes, please! The wine with new grapes? Yes, pretty please!
Recently, I managed to find a few wines with grapes I never had before. Not only that but one of the wines was made in the region which was new to me, so the two proverbial birds were killed with one stone – err, bottle. Here are the quick notes on these wines:
First, two wines from Eastern Europe. I never had the wines of Bosnia and Herzegovina, so this was a new country I was able to add to the list. Both wines were tasty, and Tikveš Belo was probably my favorite wine out of these 4. New grapes are marked in bold:
2015 Čitluk Winery Blatina Bosnia & Herzegovina (13% ABV, 100% Blatina)
Brickish red
Plums, dried fruits, medium intensity
Sour cherries, soft, round, medium body, good acidity, soft tannins
7+, not sure how it was stored. It is still nice, simple, and easy to drink, but probably on the decline.
8, on the second day. Interesting transformation – tertiary aromas are gone, plums, cherries and sage on the palate, nice, round, pleasant.
2020 Tikveš Belo Special Selection North Macedonia (11.5% ABV, Smederevka, Riesling, Marsanne, Roussanne)
A light greenish hue
A hint of gunflint, Whitestone fruit, medium intensity but very confident nose
Lemon, a hint of grass, salivating acidity.
8, this is a beautiful food wine, will compliment a wide range of foods.
It is my second time drinking Armenian wines. I was really looking forward to Yacoubian-Hobbs white, but the wines ended up being a disappointment. The Armenian red was quite drinkable. In any case, when you drink with a purpose, you don’t complain.
2018 Yacoubian-Hobbs Dry White Wine Aghavnadzor Vayots Dzor Armenia (14% ABV, blend of Voskehat, Khatuni, Qrdi, Garan Demak)
Golden color
Stewed fruit on the nose
The palate had some stewed plums, it was overwhelming and had no acidity. The wine was devoid of balance.
N/R, Maybe a bad bottle? Cork broke while I was opening the wine using a standard waiter corkscrew. But the wine didn’t seem oxidized, maybe heat damage?
2019 VinArdi Estate Blend Dry Red Wine Armenia (13.5% ABV, 40% Areni, 35% Haghtanak, 25% Milagh)
Dark Ruby red
Wild berries on the nose
Wild berries, dried herbs, medium+ body, good structure, good acidity, excellent balance.
8-, easy to drink
Now you know all about my wine obsessions. And I get to increase the counter you see on the top of the page from 561 to 567. Little by little…
By the way, there is no stopping in sight. While I’m trying to close on 600, there are people in The Wine Century Club discussing the 800 mark. Talk about obsessions… Enjoy your wine. Cheers!
WMC21: Day 2 Highlights
We started the 2nd day of WMC21 with the breakout sessions, no keynotes. There were two sessions run in parallel, so you had to choose the topic which would be more of interest to you.
My first session, The Art of Storytelling for the Wine Industry, was presented by Jill Barth, a seasonal wine writer who writes for Forbes, Wine Enthusiast, Decanter, and other wine publications. Jill also won multiple awards (best wine blog 2016, Millessima wine and food pairing award, etc). Jill had a lot of good advice on how to build your story, what would make it a good story, how to pitch your story to the editors, and more.
Next, I listened to Scott Fish from 32 Digital, who was talking about taking your Instagram account to the next level. There were a lot of good information presented in the session – what are the best and worst times to post (it appears that Sunday is one of the worst days for the posts), how many tags to use, the optimal number of pictures in the gallery and so on. There were also some interesting tools recommendations, such as Answer To Public – a service that allows finding the most popular searches at the moment for a given keyword(s), all presented in an interesting format. You can see an example below of the search results for the keywords “red wine”.
You can definitely play with the tool, however, note that with the free search, you get a limited number of searches per IP address per day (I think 3 or 4), so play wisely.
Another interesting tool I learned about was Geolmgr which allows you to geotag your photos to a specific geographic location.
The next session, Digital Marketing for Wine Media, was presented by Mike Wangbickler, wine blogger, long-time WMC attendee, and owner of Balzac Communications agency. Mike started with some hard questions to the audience, such as “why do you have a wine blog” – it appears that literally no one had a wine blog to make money. Then Mike went on to talk about a plethora of tools available today to the bloggers in terms of SEO, content management, optimizing your delivery to your customer audience, and lots more.
After lunch, we had an excellent panel on Oregon sparkling wine. Before the session started we had an opportunity to taste three of the Oregon sparkling wines from the wineries participating in the panel. One of the wines was delicious sparkling Tannat from Troon Vineyards which we tasted on the first day. My other favorite was the 2017 Willamette Valley Vineyards Brut Sparkling Wine, which had all the classic Champagne traits – a touch of toasted bread on the nose, crisp, tight, and elegant on the palate.
The panel discussion was joined by Craig Camp, Troon Vineyard, Christine Clair, Willamette Valley Vineyards, Jessica Thomas, Sweet Cheeks Winery, and moderated by L.M. Archer.
It was a good discussion, starting with the history of sparkling wine in Oregon, and going through all the aspects of sparkling wine production. What was particularly interesting for me is a different approach to selecting the grapes for the sparkling wine. Willamette Valley Vineyards found out that one of the Chardonnay clones in the specific vineyard doesn’t perform well enough to be vinified into the still Chardonnay, but it happened to be well suited for the sparkling wine which requires much lesser ripeness. At the same time, the Sweet Cheek Winery harvests grapes for their sparkling wines from the same vineyard used for the still wine, but in the earlier pass, leaving the grapes for the still wines to ripen further.
Our next session was a wine discovery session where we had a choice of learning about Italian wines of Marche or Abruzzo – my choice was Marche, and we will talk about it in a separate post.
And then there were Lightning Talks. Lightning talks is an interesting concept. These are the sessions presented by fellow bloggers and wine writers. Each presenter submits a presentation with any number of slides, however, the slides change automatically and should be presented in exactly 5 minutes. This is the amount of time given to everyone – either you are done or not, but your time slot will stop exactly at 300 seconds. All the presenters did an excellent job – Gwendolyn Alley talked about being a cellar rat, Jeff Burrows spoke about starting your own blogging group, Brianne Cohen spoke about the virtual tasting business she started in 2020. My favorite talk though was the one presented by Steve Noel, who spoke about creative wine descriptors – I couldn’t stop laughing the whole 5 minutes while Steve was talking. While it will not be the same as Steve’s live presentation, he graciously allowed me to include his presentation in my post – you can find it here.
Our last session of the day, and essentially, the conference, was Wine Live Social for the red wines, which I already covered in this post.
Customary, the conference ends with the announcement of the next year’s location. Unfortunately, Zephyr folks, organizers of the conference, didn’t have a chance to work on securing the next location, as they had to operate with minimal staff, so the location will be announced later.
This was the end of the official conference, but you can probably imagine that we couldn’t let it go so easily, so after dinner, many of the attendees reconvened in the lobby to … yes, you guessed it – drink more wine and talk. There were lots of wines, but one particularly interesting for me was the 2009 Ranchita Canyon Vineyard Old Vine Cabernet Pfeffer – Cabernet Pfeffer is the grape I never tried before, and I recently saw it mentioned by someone, so it was definitely interesting to try. Not sure when this bottle was opened, so the wine was not super-enjoyable, but hey, I get to increase my grape count.
When I went to my room at around 2 am, there was still plenty of wine left, as you can see below. When I came out for breakfast the next morning, the foyer had no traces of wine bloggers partying all night.
There you are, my friends – if you missed the conference, I hope this gives you some idea as to what was going on there, and I hope next year it will be at the place and time good enough for all of us to get together.
I’m done with my report from the conference, but not with Oregon wines. I spent the next 4 days visiting wineries with Carl Giavanti, so as they say, watch this space…
Discovering Armenian Wine
I love wine.
I’m a collector.
Based on these two statements, how easy it is to assume that I’m a wine collector? No brainer, right?
And nevertheless, I don’t see myself as a wine collector. The only reason I have a wine cellar (a bunch of wine fridges, rather) is that I like to drink aged wines – not for any bragging or financial reasons.
So what am I collecting then?
Experiences. I love to collect experiences. Tasting the wines I didn’t taste before (an easy one – every year, I should have what, 500,000 options?) Tasting the wines made from the grapes I never tasted before. Tasting the wines from the new places.
Growing up in the 80s in the USSR, I knew about Georgian wines – those were the most famous (Georgia was one of the 15 republics in the former Soviet Union). I also knew about Georgian cognac (yeah, should be called brandy, but do you think anyone cared there about the trademarks?) – but those were not the best. The best cognacs (okay, okay, brandies) were coming from Armenia (another republic then) though. Not being really into wines and grape growing, I never thought of a possible connection between the wine and cognac (both are made from grapes), thus I never thought that it is entirely possible that Armenia might be also making wines if they already got the grapes.
Turns out that it would be an excellent guess to connect the dots err, grapes, as it appears that wine had been made in Armenia for the past 6,000 years or so. I’m not here to debate the crowning of the “cradle of winemaking” title – whether it is Armenia, Georgia, or Turkey is all fine by me, please accept my sincere gratitude for bringing wine into this world.
As we said, Armenia is one of the oldest wine-producing countries in the world, which had been shown through the archaeological excavations, discovering the wine production facility located in Areni cave complex and dating back to around 4000 BC. Considering such a long history, it is safe to say that wine is an indelible part of the Armenian lifestyle.
In more recent days, during the Soviet rule, Armenia was producing wine and brandy, but the majority of the wine was produced in the Sherry style (it is interesting to note that similar to the wines of the Sherry region in Spain, Armenian “Sherry” wines can also develop a thin protective layer (flor) on the surface. Needless to say that production of fine wines was never encouraged during the soviet era.
Armenia’s terroir is conducive for the production of fine wine – predominantly volcanic soils, rich in nutrients, and high vineyard elevation (2,000 – 5,000+ feet above sea level) help to produce good quality grapes. About 30 indigenous grape varieties also help to produce wines of unique flavor profile and character.
I had an opportunity to sample two of the Armenian wines, courtesy of Storica wines, an importer and online retailer of Armenian wines in the USA.
The first wine I tried was traditional method sparkling wine produced by Keush. Keush winery was established in 2013, however, they use 100–120 years old vines, growing at the 5,200 feet elevation above sea level, some of the highest vineyards in Armenia. This classic method sparkling wine was produced from the indigenous grape varieties, and I have to honestly admit that the wine greatly exceeded my expectations.
The second wine I tasted was produced by one of the youngest wineries in Armenia, Zulal (the word means “pure” in Armenian). The winery produces about 10,000 cases per year, focusing on Areni and Voskehat grapes sourced from about 40 villages from Aghavnadzor, Rind, Arpa Valley, and Vayots Dzor regions.
NV Keush Origins Brut Methode Traditionelle Armenia (12% ABV, $25.99, 60% Voskehat, 40% Khatouni, at least 22 months on the lees, Lot 08.15)
Light golden color
Beautiful nose of toasted bread, a touch of yeast, clean, inviting, classic
Beautiful minerality, fresh, toasted notes, vibrant, clean acidity, fine creamy bubbles coating your mouth.
Outstanding, 8+
2018 Zulal Areni Reserve Vayots Dzor, Armenia (13% ABV, $32.99, 100% Areni, 12 months in Caucasian and French oak barrels)
Dark garnet
Not an expressive nose, underbrush, herbal undertones, a touch of fresh berries
Black pepper, wild berries, dried herbs, soft, clean, easy to drink
8, simple, quaffable, easy to drink, perfect for the conversation
As a wine drinker, I’m very happy with my discovery. Keush sparkling was outstanding, both delicious and a great QPR. Zulal Areni was also quite delightful. As a collector, I’m also very happy, as I get to add 3 new grapes, plus a checkmark to the list of the winemaking countries I had an opportunity to taste the wines from. Most importantly, I had an experience of drinking the wines made in the country which is an indelible part of the world’s winemaking history. All in all, a good day.
Have you ever had Armenian wines? If you had, what do you think of them? If you didn’t, are you ready to rectify things? Cheers!
Pleasures of the Obscure – New Discoveries
If you follow this blog for some time, you might (or might not) know that I identify as an obsessed wine geek. There is definitely more than one trait that would allow such an identification, so the particular one I want to talk about here is the love of obscure grapes.
I was bitten by The Wine Century Club bug more than 15 years ago, and since then I’m on the quest to seek the most unusual wines made from the most obscure grapes. The Wine Century Club offers to wine lovers a very simple proposition – for every 100 different grapes you taste, you get to the next level in the club. With more than 1,300 grapes used in wine production today, this shouldn’t be very difficult, shouldn’t it? Yet, of course, it is, as an absolute majority of the wines readily available today in the supermarkets, wine stores, and even from the wineries direct, are made from 50–60 mainstream grapes – the rest requires quite a bit of work of procuring as most of the wines made out of the rare grapes are produced in minuscule quantities and not sold anywhere outside of the immediate area of production.
So if finding those rare and unusual wines is that difficult, why bother you may ask? I can give you a few reasons. One – I can simply tell you that I tried 555 grapes at the time of writing this post, so it kind of “mine is bigger than yours” type of reason. Yep, lame. Let’s leave it.
The better reason is the fact that every bottle of wine made from grapes one never heard of before is an opportunity to experience great pleasure. The grape is unknown, so we have no expectations whatsoever. While drinking Cabernet Sauvignon, that simple little piece of information – the name of the grape you are well familiar with – has a tremendous effect on how you perceive the wine. The level of pleasure will depend on how well the particular wine matches your expectations. It might be the best ever for you in the blind tasting, but in the non-blind setting, you are instantly influenced by your prior experience and thus your level of pleasure is limited by your expectations.
When you pour yourself a glass of Bobal, Trepat, or Hondarrabi Zuri, you are presented with a blank canvas – you can draw any conclusions you want. You will decide if you like the wine not in comparison but simply based on what is in your glass and if it gives you pleasure, or not. Simple, straightforward, easy.
Here, let me share with you my latest encounter with obscure grapes.
Let’s start with the white wine – 2017 Paşaeli Yapincak Thrace Turkey (12% ABV, 100% Yapincak). Yapincak is a native variety of Şarköy – Tekirdağ region in Northern Turkey. The grapes for this wine, produced by Paşaeli winery in Turkey, come from the single vineyard located at about 500 feet elevation, 35 years old vines. Upon opening the wine showed some oxidative notes, I even thought it might be gone already. A few hours later, it cleared up, and presented itself as a medium to full-bodied wine, with fresh lemon and a touch of honey notes, crisp, fresh, easy to drink. This can be a food wine, but it doesn’t have to be, quite enjoyable on its own. (Drinkability: 8-/8)
My rare red wine was really a special experience, as it brought back really special memories. I got this 2014 Agricola Vallecamonica Somnium Vino Rosso (12.5% ABV, 100% Ciass Negher) 4 years ago, during a press trip to the beautiful region of Franciacorta. As we were the guests of the Franciacorta consortium, we were mainly focusing on the Franciacorta sparkling wines. During one of our lunches, I noticed this wine and had to bring it home, albeit only one bottle. This wine is made out of the ancient grape called Ciass Negher in the local dialect, used in the winemaking by the Romans about 2,000 years ago, and resuscitated by Alex Belingheri in his vineyards at Agricola Vallecamonica.
This wine was absolutely unique – as you would expect considering its rare pedigree. I perceived this wine as something in a middle between Pinot Noir and Chianti/Sangiovese. A touch of Pinot Noir’s sweetness, smoke, and violets, with the undertones of leather and tobacco, and a little funk. Each sip was begging for another – easy to drink, perfectly balanced, and delightful. If this would be my everyday wine, I would be perfectly happy about it. (Drinkability: 8+)
Here you are, my friends. The wine pleasures are everywhere – you just need to look for them.
Pleasures of Obscure: Enjoying the Journey
Many moons ago I got bit by the bug of collecting the … grape experiences. Back in 2007 or so, I discovered The Wine Century Club. The word “century” here is used for its exact meaning – a 100. In order to become a member of the Wine Century Club, one has to fill up the application and specify how many grape varieties he or she had tried – as soon as you hit the 100, you can send the application to the designated email address, and your membership certificate will be mailed to you.
The club works on the complete honor system, but there is a legend that if you will lie on your application, your palate will be cursed forever – I don’t know if anyone tried to play the system, but I definitely don’t want my palate to be cursed, so I never tried.
When I started this blog back in 2010, I was at the 200 grapes level – so-called Doppel. I carefully documented my journey to the 300 mark (a Treble Member) under the category of Treble Journey. Since that time I managed to reach the 500 level (called Pentavini) back in February of 2016 (exactly 4 years ago) – and this was the last post on the subject of The Wine Century Club – however, I continued documenting my “rare grape” discoveries throughout the posts (that is yet another category in here), and I still hope to reach the 600 mark (called Hexavini) in my lifetime, even though the process became considerably slower at this point. There are more than 1,300 grapes used in the winemaking today, but it doesn’t mean that wines made out of those grapes are readily available, easy to find, and inexpensive.
While reaching the highest possible number of grapes tasted is the goal, my main joy is in the journey itself. There are multiple fun aspects of that journey. First, you get to drink unique and different wines. When taking a sip of Kharkuna or Prunelart, you have no preconceived notions. You can’t say “ohh, it doesn’t taste like Cabernet”, because it is not Cabernet. You now have to decide if you like or don’t like this specific wine in your glass – you have nothing to compare it to and be disappointed by comparison (“ohh, this $30 Cabernet tastes like crap compared to $20 bottle I had last week”) – you have to make a simple, binary decision – 1. I like it. 2. I don’t like it.
Secondly, you get to play a part of the wine sleuth – you need to find information about the grape, you need to find out if Ull de Liebre is a new grape for you, or if it is simply another name for Tempranillo, and you need to verify and compare your sources – lots and lots of fun, I’m telling you.
Ultimately, the list of grapes you tasted is yours and only yours, and you have to make some decisions – for example, will you count clones or not? Is Sangiovese Grosso the same as Sangiovese? Is Ink de Toro identical to Tempranillo, or should it be considered a different grape? What are you going to do about all of the Pinot Noir clones, which many producers, especially the ones in Oregon, love to tell you about? The journey of every grape geek is unique and different – and fun.
As I mentioned before, my last post on the subject of The Wine Century Club was 4 years ago. At that time, my “grape count” which you can see on the top of the blog, was standing at 518. During these four years, I managed to add another 37 varieties, now reaching the 555 total.
Here is another interesting tidbit for you. Only a month ago, I managed to finally complete the original (!) Wine Century Club table, by adding Arvine Grosso (original table, which you can find on the top of the page here, had 184 varieties listed and had both Arvine and Petite Arvine) to the roster, so this was one of the triggers to this post.
I’m honestly not a hurry, I really enjoy this journey. I have another 3-4 wines made out of unique grape varieties, waiting to be open. Will I ever reach 600? I can’t tell. But I can tell you that I’m thoroughly enjoying each and every rare grape encounter – yes, you can call me a grape geek.
In case you are wondering, below is a full list of all 37 new rare grapes added to the collection over the past 4 years. Have you ever been bitten by the grape bug? Cheers!