Tag Archives: Bordeaux

Nov2

A Wine for a Jedi

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A Wine for a Jedi

Skywalker Vineyards

Big news this week about Disney buying up Lucasfilm and with it the Star Wars franchise. You might know that George is in the wine game with his Skywalker Vineyards, but as we wait for Star Wars on Ice and a slew of new Disneyfied Jedi flicks to hit the theaters over the next Millennia or three, I ponder what wine would a Jedi drink?

One’s Force-sensitive mind can first turn only to the the Jedi High Council. When these academic space knights ponder the balance of good and evil in the universe in their ancient kick-ass wisdom, wine must the best thinking man’s companion. Hidden deep under their palace must be wine cellars built during the glory days of the old Republic, stocked row upon row with liquid more elevated than some high-yield, Australian plonk or, even more unlikely, yet another clone varietal approved by the mess of an Imperial Senate. I mean, can you picture Sam L Jackson downing a Two Buck Chuck before dispensing with yet more of Palpatine’s droid lackeys?

But of them, Yoda, the gnarliest of them all, would surely go for something even more old world. Perhaps an old vines red that personifies a terroir of suffering and rigor, from a long-forgotten stone-rimmed clos, of vines that have railed quietly against the vile elements and poxes of phylloxera and its ilk. A Mourvedre from Bandol or Chile’s forgotten Old Vine Cariganane.

With the skywalking Luke himself most likely going Romney on us (though if you find him in a bar at some grimy spaceport, he’d assure you he’s drinking a Sardinian Cannonau, because to a young swashbuckling whose adrenalin is laced with too many midi-chlorians, Cannoanau sounds like a cool thing to drink) and Darth Maul surely preferring over the top fruit-bombed oak monsters of country clubbing Cali cab cults, a wine geek can only turn to Darth Vader for a finer palate. If our first true Sith love were ever to touch down on our fair little planet without going all Alderaan on us, I’d dare to think he’s a Bordeaux man, willing to wait out the years and trilogies and coax out the best from a tight, young Pomerol that with time he would uncork on us as a mean, aged menace of a Merlot.

With the Siths accounted for, I think, we turn our eyes to the greybeard who got the ball rolling so many years ago – Obi-Wan. Luke only knew Ben Kenobi as a recluse hermit before galavanting to the Death Star with him on the old coot’s journey to suicidal elevation. And what would a lonely old hermit (with unnaturally neatly cropped beard, mind you) sip on as he waits for his death duel? Pondering your destiny at the wrong end of a Sith lord’s laser sword calls for nothing other than the distraction of a complex Viognier white wine from Condrieu, that windswept godliness of steep hillsides in France’s Rhone valley.

Oh wait… oh dear… I’m feeling that all too familiar tingle of the beginnings of a force choke hold (or is that my peanut allergy acting up? Damn you, Halloween candy). The Emperor – that wily rascal – mind-blocked me. But as my wife knows, I can’t resist the lure of the dark side and all the swill it has to offer, and the Emperor can’t keep my prying eyes from his stash. And if Vader’s drinking a Petrus worth a couple grand, the Emperor won’t be outdone and has had his minions scanning star systems far and wide for starship wrecks to enjoy outrageously priced Chateau Lafites of bygone centuries. And trust me, if it’s gone all vinegar on him, he’s so puckered up already, you won’t know it. Be warned, though, that if you’re stuck in a room with Palpatine, he’s gonna draw comparisons between the eventual domination of the wine world by Lafite and its mighty Bordeaux ilk and his own eventual domination of the galaxy. In this case, walk away. Just walk away.

And so we have come to the end of our journey to a galaxy of wine long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away. May the force be with you and your sipping habits, and remember, when shopping for that Thanksgiving wine for dinner at the in-laws and you’re in the store by the animal logo wines, it’s good to remember that fateful line from the assault of the first Death Star, “Stay on target, stay on target” and head for something more, shall we say, Force-sensitive. If not, well, she might have this in mind…

May18

Bordeaux 2003 Vintage in the Rearview Mirror

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Bordeaux 2003 Vintage in the Rearview Mirror

In 2003, many Bordeaux wine barons made a lot of noise in the media about the supposed excellence of that vintage even though the region had suffered through such a heat wave that, in Saint-Emilion for example, harvesting needed to be done very early. Some grapes were burned up, others under ripe, causing their critics to scoff at the proclamations of a great vintage. So looking back, let’s see what became of it all.

At winedoctor.com, Chris Kissack reviewed some wines from the vintage two years after the fact, and remarked that surprisingly “the red wines do not, on the whole, suffer from low acidity” and that tannins are prominent in many of the wines, but that “at this stage, offer typical mineral-blackcurrant flavors of Bordeaux.” So judging by Chris’s thoughts, it was still hard to pin down the verdict on these wines in 2005.

Then again, in 2011, Chris took another look at this unique “heatwave vintage”, as he called it. Chris pointed out his curiosity on the shelf life of these wines, which has had critics split into camps – but more on that further down – and himself found the vintage to have a multiple personality disorder in this regard. His take is thorough and I recommend you to read both his article sin their entirety.

Simon Woolf at The Morning Claret referred to the steep criticism of the vintage as “scaremongering” in his 2011 review of Phélan Ségur 2003, and 8 years on from the vintage, found the Phélan Ségur to be impressive and even a value, which is as he mentioned, more often than not difficult for Bordeaux wine. But this is only one wine, so on we go to find more clues.I wonder what some of the big fish have said…

Well, Robert Parker wasn’t handing out 100 point scores like bronze medals in Olympic boxing as he has more recently. He gave the highest school grades to Ausone (St-Emilion), and the first growths Lafite and Latour, then Margaux (and Jancis Robinson panned the lesser Margaux’s for over-oaking, so there is a clear falling into camps here), Montrose (St-Estèphe) and Pavie (St-Emilion), which surprised many European tasters who were especially surprised by Pavie’s grades. This all resulted in a war of words between Parker and Jancis Robinson (in the press) and created what Robinson humorously dubbed the “mid-Atlantic rift”. Robinson labelled the wine ‘ridiculous’ and Zinfandel-like. As Decanter’s James Lawther also bestowed praise, perhaps the heat had molded 2003 into a wine fit for that niche of the American market where big Cab, Zins and Oak Monsters dwell. Perhaps to support this theory, it should be noted that Parker marked down wines such as Canon La Gaffelière, which he said ‘lacks depth, concentration and length’, and Gazin while Steven Spurrier, who called the same wines ‘the successes of the vintage’, diplomatically responded that ‘This shows Parker appreciates the ripeness of St-Emilion more than the Brits do,’.

A portion of critics, among them Jancis Robinson (see her article 2003 Bordeaux – Drink Up!), have suggested that wines from the 2003 Bordeaux vintage are for short to mid-term drinking, while others have thought these wines could hold for up to 30 years. But I like Chris Kissack’s take on it – that this vintage has multiple personalities – though Chris’s slant when it comes to the reds from 2003 appears to be more for aging than immediate drinking (his stance was in 2011).

So in looking at all this, it could be said that the 2003 heatwave gave to the Bordelais something different in their bottles. Not worse overall, but a wine geared perhaps for a different audience, or giving something else – daresay even foreign – to the traditional audience. Difference and change always breeds resistance and criticism, and the initial pontifications of the Bordeaux wine growers added fuel to the fire at a time when in France the larger region as a whole was suffering from the same heat wave, and crops were being culled to make the best of a bad situation. And yet the elite among them insisted this would be a fantastic vintage.

Think what you may though, it is wonderful to see such passion for wine. Bordeaux 2003 engendered stronger feelings than probably any region’s vintage has in the past, and I look forward to the next vintage that entrenches the passionate critics and winos across the planet.

Jan1

The Red Baron of Wine

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The Red Baron of Wine
The Red Baron of Wine

Here at Wineshout we love our innovators, and Baron Eric de Rothschild is one of the original innovators in the wine world. So having just received the lifetime achievement award from Wine Enthusiast, earlier in 2010 received the Southern Wine & Spirits of America Lifetime Achievement Award, and most notably he’s even gotten a New York building co-op board’s seal of approval – no small feat – after 20 other millionaires were passed over, the Baron’s a fitting topic to begin sharing with you wine links in this, the new year.

This Baron of red wine prestige, born in the USA and once the most sought-after bachelor in all of Paris, took over the management of legendary Lafite in 1974 and was very active in making it an exceptional estate. The changeover was hailed by multiple fabulous vintages, including 1975, 1976, and 1982, and the stage was set for several excellent wines through the ’90s and the first vintages of the 21st century.

For a closer look into how the Baron ticks, hop on over to this article in Elle, or hear it from the man
 himself in his “expensively accented English” in this rare interview.

And for a great write-up on the chateau he guided to new heights, check out this write-up by Chris Kissack aka the Wine Doctor.

We hope you enjoy the links and info we shared with you today. And if it’s helped you, help us by telling your friends. Thanks, and have a happy new year, everyone!