Anyone who
has forgotten that the wine and spirits industry is an industry should go to the Chile and Wine Festival’s Trade Tasting in Santa Fe.
Seventy to seventy-five tables lined with rows of eight to fifteen bottles
of wine each, waiting to be tasted at your request. Most wineries have a range of wines of
differing qualities and dosages, from the great to the pedestrian. Since Mother Nature is variable in what she
gives climatically each year, some years produce really good wines in abundance at really
good prices. For a restaurant such as
Suzette’s, those are the super stars.
Today our
goal was to find a really good pinot noir for around $10.00. Since pinot noir is a relatively delicate
wine and must be nurtured and caressed for it to produce its characteristic clarity
and fruitiness that is a pretty tall order.
Mixing lots of different pinot grapes typically does not result in a
wine with clarity or fruitiness; nor does growing grapes in a warm weather
climate that produces grapes in abundance.
Pinot Noir seems to be best when grown in the more northern reaches of
wine growing areas, like on hill tops in northern California and Southern
Oregon, where the vines are exposed to a mix of fog, rain and sun light. Special care and special places are not conducive
to cheap wines. Those tend to be grown
in California’s Central Valley and have a decidedly baked flavor or a big, heavy
flavor, if you prefer. I like the white
wines that are grown in the areas where pinot noir is grown also, because they
seem to have a more fruit forward, delicately acidic flavor, like the pinots
from those areas.
Because
Suzette had to drive back from Santa Rosa and we had to get gas, we arrived an hour
late for the 3:00 to 5:30 tasting, which left us only 1 ½ hours to taste wine,
so the solution was to stick to those wines within the target category; moderately
priced pinot noirs and anything new and interesting looking. We must have tasted sixty to 75 wines. Tasting was one sip and, if interesting, two
sips and some discussion with the winery’s representative. Since the Chile and Wine Festival is one of
the important national festivals, you find well informed representatives from
each of the wineries willing to pour and discuss their wines and it is favored by wineries and producers for introducing new offerings. For example, the Kendall Jackson booth was
pouring their superior grade of pinot noir called Oakland Hills. When their representative said they were investing
heavily into Anderson Valley, I asked if they had bought the Londer property
and he said, “Yes.” and then told us that they were either working with the
Londers which means they bought the Londer's grapes or they had bought the Londer’s winery, which abuts one of Kendall’s
existing properties. If I understood Kendall Jackson's pricing, their Oakland Hills pinot was around $25.00 which is about ½ of the
price that the Londers sold their best wines for. Unfortunately, the Oakland Hills pinot that I
tasted had a more extracted (processed); less fresh fruity flavor, that was a
bit unpleasant to me. So there are not
many perfect wines, those that are inexpensive, fruity, with clarity. That is why you need to try fifty or sixty to
find one or two. My favorite in that category was
Bonnterra's Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc, grown organically near the boundary of Sonoma
and Mendocino counties. This year the Mendocino
and Lake County pinots, like Lake Placid Winery's, seemed to be among the best tasting
pinots that were moderately priced.
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| A new smooth chalky cab from Mt. Veedrer |
We tried a
few cabs and an interesting French chardonnay brut champagne from the Pouilly Fuisse region of Burgundy and several not
very interesting Southern Rhones except for Guigal’s Gigondes, which was a star (located west of Chateauneuf de Pape) and a super interesting Chenin Blanc/ Viogner blend from Ridge? Winery and
several really good ports, including a glass of 20 year old tawny port poured
from a double magnum by Dow’s, which I drank every drop of.
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| my favorite Sauvigon Blanc |
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| two interesting new Sauvignon blancs from New Zealand |
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| another good inexpensive pinot from Sonoma |
After the tasting,
we were invited to Southern Wine and Spirits’ penthouse party on the roof of
the Eldorado, where I drank a wonderful ginger beer from Bermuda to sober up
and we met and talked to Hal Leonard, General Manager of Buffalo Thunder’s
Hilton Hotel and watched golden sun light on the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
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| the after Party with Hal Leonard, manager of Hilton at Buffalo Thunder, with friends and a Sangre de Cristo sunset |
As we drove home we were accompanied by a
peach blossom sunset in the west behind a bank of clouds over the Jemez Mountains
in a brilliantly golden sky, which reminded us why we had moved to New Mexico.
Our day started
at around 7:00 a.m. when Suzette left to drive to Santa Rosa (110 miles each
way) and I rode 10 miles to Montano and back. It was a cool clear day without much wind and several balloons were floating above the bosque.
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| bike trail at Montano looking south |
Then at
11:00 Jennifer and Al Shoman called and we decided to meet at The Frontier for
a lunch meeting. I was not hungry, so I
split a cinnamon roll with Jennifer, while Al ate huevos rancheros and then a cinnamon
roll. The few bites of cinnamon roll
reminded me why I do not like the Frontier, if you had to pick a something to
eat with little or no nutrition and lots of fat and calories, the Frontier’s
cinnamon roll might be a great choice: lots of yeasted white flour smothered
with a sugar and butter/margarine glaze; Yuck.
When we arrived
home from the tasting and after party around 8:30 and I made a chicken and
cheese quesadilla with slices of white meat chicken, longhorn jack cheese and
some pickled red onions between two whole wheat tortillas sautéed in PPI olive
oil from the pork confit. I then ate a
bowl of mocha almond fudge ice cream doused with rum and Kahlua. Back to normal food, thank God.
After a whirlwind
day of activity we went to bed around 9:30.
Bon Appétit
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