Malbec

When I started drinking wine, I had a European sensibility: place names meant more to me than grape varieties. I didn't know which grapes went into Châteauneuf-du-Pape, St-Emilion, or Rioja, but I knew those wines. That was the 1990s and times have changed: now drinkers, including myself, want to know the precise percentage of each grape variety in a blend or buy wines solely on the variety.

Cahors

On a trip through south-west France several years ago, I passed through Cahors. It's a pretty, relaxed town situated next to the Lot river, with one of the most famous bridges in France. The land is rugged and off-beat, south of the Dordogne on the way to nowhere, quietly doing its own thing as much of France does. I was stuck for something to eat and dared to walk into a dingy bar that had a surprisingly good menu advertised outside. Asking to eat, the barman gestured me to the back past some beaded curtains. I warily stepped through them into an large, tastefully decorated restaurant. Satisfied that the meal was going to be as good as advertised outside the bar, I ordered a local wine and fell in love with it, determined always to drink Cahors whenever I found it in the future. The fruits were black, the oak grainy, the supple yet appealingly rustic texture inviting another sip.

I had no idea the wine was from Malbec, a grape I only heard of later in the context of Argentina. The wine spoke of its place - warm, rural, and timeless - not solely of its grape. Yet everyone now knows the name Malbec, and if anyone knows the place Cahors it is because of Malbec - even though in Cahors it's actually called Auxerrois.

Malbec in France

Malbec was little known until its sudden Argentinian emergence because it never succeeded in France outside of Cahors. It is a Bordeaux grape, but conditions in the moderate maritime climate are difficult: it's susceptible to spring frost and it ripens late and not always successfully. In 1956, spring frost killed off the Malbec vines in both Bordeaux and Cahors. Bordeaux growers simply did not bother replanting, Merlot replacing it as the preferred blending grape (and plantings of Malbec had long been in decline anyway). Now only the Côtes de Blaye consistently adds Malbec to blends. Cahors growers, however, decided to stick with Malbec and replanted it, rewarded with appellation status in 1970, still the only AC in France dedicated to the grape.

Malbec is also grown in the Loire Valley, where it's often called Côt. The wines in this cooler climate are much lighter, with more red fruits than black, and not dissimilar to the Gamay also grown in the region.

Malbec in Argentina

In the late 1980s, the Argentinian economy stabilised for the first time since before the Great Crash of 1929. Up to that point, the wine industry had been focused entirely on the cheap domestic market in a country that had record levels of consumption - 100 litres of wine per person a year in the 1970s. Such had been the neglect of quality grapes in Argentina, Malbec had been pulled up throughout the 1980s, reducing plantings from 50,000ha to 10,000ha (it's now back to over 20,000ha). With the recovery of the economy, more ambitious winemakers decided to focus on exports. Malbec, brought into Argentina by French winemakers fleeing the ravages of phylloxera in the mid to late nineteenth century, was the grape that defined the new era of Argentinian wine. 

Since the first plantings in Argentina in the 1550s, the best sites have been identified in the Andean heights above Mendoza. These sites are particularly suited to Malbec because there is no spring frost. Furthermore, the high altitude, with hot days and cool nights, ensures a long growing season which retains the acidity in the grape but enables full ripening. Nowhere else does the ripening of Malbec's sugars and aromas happen so harmoniously - though I do think that Washington state with its day/night temperature variations has great potential.

wines

 

Buoncristiani Napa Valley Malbec 2012 (c.$60)

Malbec is grown a surprisingly great deal around Napa Valley, though usually as an ingredient in Bordeaux blends. My problem with Napa wines is that although they have varietal character, they all taste too similar: high alcohol, aggressive tannins, and intense fruit and oak aromas.

This wine, a rare single-varietal Napa Malbec, suffers from this problem. Even though the grapes are grown on hillside vineyards, the alcohol is too high (15%) and the acidity not quite high enough. The grapes have ripened fully - Malbec does not have the same problem in Napa that it does in Bordeaux - so there are lots of ripe blackberries and cherries. A great wine to go with steak, but it's impossible to justify the price. ✪✪✪✪

Maryhill Clifton Bluff Vineyard Wahluke Slope Malbec 2012 ($25)

A defining characteristic of Washington reds is their acidity: the cool nights throughout the growing season keep it refreshingly high. In this wine from Wahluke Slope, that acidity lifts the drying tannins and smoky oak. The hot days, meanwhile, produce fruity wines and there is plenty of ripe blackberry, blueberry, and mulberry - all typical of Malbec. ✪✪✪✪

Perdriel Colección Malbec 2009 ($20)

The best wine of the four, this shows why Mendoza does Malbec so well. Very good value, and with immediate, fun, yet complex aromas of roasted almonds and hazelnuts, cedar and smoke, and chocolate and coffee, with ripe tannins and high alcohol, held together by good acidity. ✪✪✪✪✪

Leval Malbec 2013 ($9.99) 

I couldn't find a Cahors wine at the last minute, so I had to settle for a Malbec from the Languedoc. This wine was so appalling it's best not to describe it: I've been reluctant to use it even as cooking wine. French wines like this one are not going to compete with Argentinian Malbec. ✪ 

*If I find a Cahors wine soon, I shall add it to the blog as a more meaningful comparison to Argentina.*

*Update 12 July 2015*

Château Haut-Monplaisir Cahors 2012 ($14.99)

Even in K&L, one of San Francisco's most international wine stores, there were only three wines from Cahors available. For the price, this is a very well integrated wine, with a nice intensity of ripe, almost jammy, black and blue fruits and a good structure from the dry, gripping tannins and high acidity. This wine is evidence that Cahors is responding to the international demand for fruity, forward Malbecs, while retaining a rustic, regional identity. It's certainly a pity that the wines aren't more readily available: if you're going to drink French Malbec, it really should come from Cahors. ✪✪✪✪

For all the romance of European place names, Malbec is successful because of single-varietal wines from Argentina. And this is where grape and place come together. Mendoza is so ideal for Malbec that the two are now synonymous. Just as Cahors expresses its remote rusticity through its Malbec wines, so too does Mendoza its sense of place: hot days and cold nights, high mountains, and beef steak, all in a bottle of wine.

Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara

With summer-loving students on their skateboards, surfers riding the waves that roll up to sandy beaches, and the main street lined with tall palm trees, Santa Barbara is as Californian as it gets. The culture is laid-back, self-confident, and independent, keen to assert its differences from the rest of the state even if to the outsider it seems quintessentially Californian.

the area

Santa Barbara is a coastal town about 150km north of Los Angeles and is as far south as quality winemaking gets in California. Santa Ynez Valley AVA is 30 minutes inland and within it is Santa Rita Hills AVA, which is the coolest AVA in California. Winds and fog come from the Pacific Ocean, cooling pocketed microclimates that are ideal for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Further north, about an hour and a half from Santa Barbara, is the large Santa Maria Valley AVA which is also cooled by coastal fog and which became famous for its Pinot Noirs in the 1980s. There are lots of vineyards here, but most wineries prefer to base themselves within the more attractive area of Santa Ynez.

Santa Ynez Valley

the towns

Solvang

I stayed in Solvang, a small tourist town in Santa Ynez Valley and one of the strangest places I've visited. It was founded by Danish settlers over a hundred years ago and now functions as a model Denmark village. There are pizza-selling windmills rising around the town, gift shops pushing Danish embroidery, quasi-Danish pubs and restaurants, and Danish flags blowing in the breeze besides American ones. Danish is not spoken. It's a busy town full of tourists from all over the world; clearly, this Danish-American hybrid holds some fascination that draws people in.

Further south along the coast, Santa Barbara is a university surfing town. The main street is State Street, a long boulevard lined with shops, restaurants, and palm trees, leading to the ocean. Further away from the centre is Isla Vista, the university area known for its party scene, populated with tanned students on skateboards wearing back-to-front baseball hats. I only got to spend a couple of hours in Santa Barbara, but I liked the relaxed, easy, seaside way of life.

the wines

view from Au Bon Climat

The AVAs are renowned for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay - Santa Barbara was made famous by Sideways nearly ten years ago. (The Hitching Post, a small, nondescript wooden restaurant featured in the film, is near Solvang.) The Pinots are fruity and oaky, yet with depth, structure, and subtlety. The use of oak in the Chardonnays varies, but they are marked by tropical fruits. Riesling, unusually for California, can also be successful because of Santa Rita Hills's cool climate. Rhône grapes also do well: Syrah is peppery in Santa Rita Hills and fuller and fruitier in the rest of Santa Ynez Valley. The two wineries which define the area are Au Bon Climat and Qupé: the former specialise in Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, while Qupé are known for their Rhône varieties - their single-varietal Roussanne and Marsanne are unique, ageworthy wines that develop for years in the bottle.

Au Bon Climat

The purpose of my visit to Santa Barbara was for a wedding, but that enabled me to meet Jim Clendenen at his Au Bon Climat winery in Santa Maria Valley - not only that, but to share a lunch cooked by Clendenen himself. 

Clendenen's lunch

Clendenen is a maverick: something of a hippy who since his first vintage in 1982 has built a 70,000-case winery; a brash, up-front individual who makes wine of individual character appreciated in the finest restaurants around the world; passionate about wine and the industry and wonderfully dismissive of big names (off the record of course); and a loving father with two ex-wives.

Au Bon Climat make almost exclusively Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The major exception is Hildegard, a wine that demonstrates Clendenen's willingness to challenge preconceived truths. The blend is Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, and Aligoté, the three grapes that were planted on Corton-Charlemagne, before Burgundy changed the rules to allow only Chardonnay in the Grands Crus. Clendenen wished to name the wine C. Charlemagne, but was advised that was not a good idea, so called it after Charlemagne's wife instead. An historic, world-class tribute to a style of wine that Burgundy refuses to make any more, the Hildegard is one of my favourite wines and I got to try the 2012 and 2006 side by side. The 2006 proved just how ageworthy this elegant but bold wine is, retaining its rich creaminess and acidity while gaining mature nutty notes.

For non-Burgundy wines, Clendenen uses the Clendenen Family Vineyards label. The 2008 Syrah-Viognier is a fruity wine that has a classy, concentrated structure: I was lucky to take an open bottle back with me and it was still drinking wonderfully well two days later. The 2012 Sauvignon Blanc is outstanding too, fermented and aged in a small amount of new oak: the grape is taken seriously instead of being a New Zealand wannabe.

The lunch was predictably epic, with risotto, chicken stew, vegetables, bread, and salad to choose from, accompanied by 15 wines. The rich Chardonnays worked less well with the heavy food than the Sauvignon Blanc and Qupé's 2011 Roussanne, both of whose light acidity balanced the food. Of the several different Pinots, the Isabelle - named after Jim's daughter - was my favourite with its dark fruits, smoky intensity, and gripping tannins.

view from Riverbench winery, Santa Maria Valley

The AVAs of Santa Barbara are young, with quality wine dating back only to the 1980s. In that time, they have quickly established themselves as producers of world-class Chardonnay and Pinot Noir - though the Rhône grapes deserve more recognition too. It's quite a different area from Napa for instance, cooler in climate but also in sensibility. The producers are quietly learning their trade, aware of their inexperience but unpretentiously and rightly confident in the quality of their wines.

Italian Whites

The reputation of Italian white wine has never been as high as its reds, even though sweet whites have been made since Roman times and Chianti was originally a white wine. Until recently, the grapes were often fermented at too high temperatures, causing the wine to lose its aromatics, and the wines would be made even flabbier by skin contact and unnecessary barrel ageing. Italy's ubiquitous white grape, Trebbiano di Toscana, also didn't help the reputation. Known as Ugni Blanc in France, the grape is bland, neutral, lifted only by high acidity (which is why it's used for making Cognac).

The last twenty years, however, have seen a huge improvement in the quality of Italian whites, with fermentation at lower temperatures and in stainless steel vats. There is now a wide range of well-made, fresh, aromatic whites to choose from - some of them inexpensive for everyday drinking, others of higher quality but still good value.

In preparation for my Diploma exam, which is in June, I've been tasting some Italian whites to get a sense of the different identity of each variety and the region they come from.

Pinot Grigio

Such has been the transformation of Italian whites that Pinot Grigio is almost synonymous with white wine. Refreshing, easy, slightly fruity, and inexpensive, wines from Pinot Grigio dominate wines by the glass in bars and restaurants. The grape is the same as Alsace's Pinot Gris (the grey of the name referring to the grape's dark coloured skins), but produces a completely different style of wine as the grapes are picked much earlier, keeping the acidity high but the aromas more neutral. Richer versions are picked later, maintaining acidity but adding aromatics. These full, floral wines defy Pinot Grigio's reputation and can be very attractive and still well priced. The popularity of the wines has seen plantings mushroom in Italy: from 3,500ha in 1990 to over 17,000 today. It's found all over the north-east of Italy, mostly in Veneto, but also in Trentino and Fruili, where the best and richest examples come from. 

wine

Blason Pinot Grigio 2013, Fruili ($9.99)
This a good example of a fuller version of Pinot Grigio: very floral (honeysuckle, acacia), with stone fruits (peach, apricot) and tropical fruits (melon, pineapple). The finish is quite spicy, with nutmeg and ginger. All at a very low price. ✪✪✪✪

Cortese

Cortese is the grape of Gavi, a town in Piemonte. The grape is notable for high acidity and mineral aromas. It also produces high yields, which can lead to overproduction and rather neutral wines. This is what happened in the 1980s, when the popularity of Gavi declined after its heyday in the 1960s and 70s due to an excess of insipid wines. The quality of Gavi is rising again, producing good value, faintly aromatic, refreshing, and lightly rich wines. The best wines are labelled Gavi di Gavi or Gavi di Tassarolo, and the most concentrated wines come from the subzone of Rovereto.

wine

Terre da Vino Agricole Masseria del Carmenitani 2014, Gavi di Gavi ($11.99)
Sweet, ripe fruits on the nose of melon, watermelon, and pineapple, with floral notes of roses and apple blossom. The palate doesn't quite follow up on the appealing aromas of the nose, but does have a good, refreshing acidity. Again, good value for money, without being particularly exciting. ✪✪✪

Garganega

Garganega is a quality grape often associated with simple, bland wines. Like Cortese, this is all down to yields: keep the yields low and the character of the grape really comes out with a dry mineral quality and white flowers, green apples, citrus, and apricots. It's the grape of Soave, a small hilltop village near Lake Garda in Veneto. Soave must be 70% Garganega; the other 30% of the blend can add to or detract from Garganega's qualities. Basic Soave is produced on flat vineyards, with Trebbiano di Toscano in the blend. The best Soave is produced on hillside vineyards under the Soave Classico DOCG, either 100% Garganega or with Trebbiano di Soave (which is actually Verdicchio) in the blend. It's this kind of confusion which doesn't help the Italian wine industry.

wine

Dama del Rovere Tremenalto, Soave Classico 2012 ($18.99)
There's an astonishing mineral character driving through this wine (which is 100% Garganega), with piercing acidity and a very dry finish. The fruits - green apples and peaches - hide behind that concentrated acidic dryness. There is something almost Riesling like in its mineral, petrol aromas and its long, dry, acidic finish. An intense, quality, but rather difficult wine. ✪✪✪✪✪

Ribolla Gialla

Found in north-east Italy in the Fruili-Venezia-Guilia region, wines from Ribolla Gialla were drunk by the Venetian nobility in the 1200s. It's vinified in a variety of ways, including oak ageing, skin contact, and being made into sparkling wines. Most commonly it is a light-bodied dry white wine, with high acidity, and citrus, lemon-pepper aromas. It is at its best in the hillside Colli Orientali del Fruili and Collio DOCs of Fruili, producing delicate wines in the latter and fuller bodied wines in the former.

wines

Vigneti Sant'Helena Ribolla Gialla 2011, Venezia IGP ($19.99)
Unfortunately, @kt_canfield drank this while I was away in France (for which I can't really blame her) so I didn't get a chance to try it. She has, however, repeatedly told me how good it was and provided me with her concise tasting notes: light, crisp, citrus, and orange peel.

Ermacora Ribolla Gialla 2013, Colli Orientali del Fruili ($15.99)
Well, I had to go out and buy another to try for myself. And naturally it wasn't as good: sharp, tart citrus fruits, lacking concentration of flavours or structure. The interesting thing is that the better wine (according to my wife at least) was an IGP, rather than from the more recognised DOC - the best Italian wines can often come from outside the hierarchy.

Vermentino

Also known as Favorita in Piemonte and Rolle in France, Vermentino is at its best on the island of Sardinia where proximity to the sea gives the wines a gripping, saline quality. Where it's grown and how it's made result in quite different wines: from light, young, and refreshing to heavier, weightier wines that have seen some lees or even oak ageing. Aromas can also vary from citrus to tropical fruits, but marked by floral and herbal characteristics.

wine

Vermentino Cantina di Gallura 2013, Sardinia ($17.99)
Unforunately, this wine was corked - most of the corked wines I have had recently have been Italian, which is becoming something of an issue.

Kerner

A wine from the Kerner grape was thrown into a blind tasting of Italian whites as a surprise element. Kerner is a German crossing of Trollinger (which is a black grape) and Riesling, and of all the German crossings it's the one that comes closest to Riesling in its flavours and very good acidity. In Italy's Alto-Adige, many German grapes such as Riesling, Gewürztraminer, and Müller-Thurgau are found, as the area is heavily Germanic (it's also called Südtirol). The best vineyards are 600-800m high, producing white wines and Pinot Nero with great acidity and aromatics.

wine

Kerner Cantina Valle Isarzo 2013, Alto Adige ($18.99)
Lots of ripe fruits on the nose, with pears, grapes, oranges, and peaches, and floral notes of honeysuckle and acacia, followed by a wet stone mineral texture and a spicy cinnamon finish on the palate. The alcohol was a little high (at 14%) but with quite concentrated flavours. ✪✪✪✪

Müller-Thurgau

Another German crossing that is at its best in the Alto Adige. Müller-Thurgau has a bad reputation and rightly so: in Germany, it's been valued for its high yields more than the quality of the wine it produces. In the 1970s and 80s, it was planted far more than Riesling and was responsible for bulk wines such as Blue Nun and Black Tower. It was propogated by a Dr. Müller from the Swiss canton of Thurgau in 1882; he thought he was crossing Riesling with Silvaner, but was actually crossing Riesling with a forgettable grape called Madeleine Royale. Despite its widespread planting in Germany, it's actually at its best elsewhere, particularly Alto Adige.

wine

Kettmeir Müller-Thurgau 2013, Alto Adige ($19.99)
Tasting this wine blind, I would confuse it for a Sauvignon Blanc. It has a very floral, herbaceous nose, with grass, nettles, lemon-pepper, and elderflower, with a citrus lime zest kick on the palate followed by a spicy ginger, nutmeg finish. ✪✪✪✪

Each of these wines is under $20 and of a consistently good quality, demonstrating that Italian whites represent very good value for money. None of them has seen any kind of ageing on their lees or in oak, instead allowing the character of the grape to come through. Despite the different grapes, there are similarities between all the wines which mark a kind of Italian style: high acidity, floral aromas of acacia and honeysuckle, and spicy palates of ginger and nutmeg. None of the wines stands out as outstanding - though the Soave came close - but they all show an improved consistency in the standard of Italian white wine.