Domaine La Barroche

Winemakers are thoughtful people. Dealing with fickle weather patterns, temperamental fermentation, and the vagaries of bottle aging seems to preclude the damning judgments, prejudices, and generalizations that pervade the rest of the wine world. I was reminded of this by the stark contrast between two recent tastings .

The first was led by a Rutgers professor, also a certified wine judge. Alarm bells went off as he pronounced "I have a 3000-bottle cellar. I never drink Burgundy before 8 years, Bordeaux before 10." He singled me out a couple times for the glass I brought - a stemless Riedel - saying it was "the most ridiculous thing ever made - if I could, I'd break every glass in existence... Not one self-respecting wine professional would ever go near that glass." When asked about Parker's influence, he gave a ludicrous caricature of a man who "prefers the fruit bomb to the balanced wine, 100% of the time." "Believe me," he said, "I've tasted with the man - I know." It was possibly the most pedantic and condescending speech I'd heard since I was in diapers... but enough about that.

The bitter taste left in my mouth by said "professor" was washed neatly away the very next day at a tasting of Domaine La Barroche. Occupying a hilltop spot in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, bordering parcels owned by Chateau Rayas, Domaine La Barroche produces some of the most exquisite, complex, and powerful wines in the Southern Rhone Valley.

I found the winemaker to be a terrific combination of humility and ambition. His respect for tradition is matched by a burning desire to make better and better wines. And yet when he succeeds, he gives most of the credit to terroir. When only 23, Julien Barrot took over Domaine La Barroche, including vineyards which had been farmed by his family in unbroken succession over three centuries. Now 28, he remembers vividly pruning the vines as a child - reluctantly at first, then with growing interest.

The wines that inspire him, apart from the other great Chateauneuf-du-Pape's, are Northern Rhones and the great Burgundies. With his high pyrazine* sensitivity, he often finds Bordeaux wines too green for his taste. In just five or so vintages, he has already produced wines that rival the nearby Chateau Rayas. Truly a rising star of Chateauneuf-du-Pape!


TASTING NOTES:


Dom. La Barroche Chateauneuf-du-Pape Reserve 2005

Medium ruby in the glass, the Reserve has a beautiful nose of cherry liqueur with a hint of earth and spice. In the mouth it is lusciously medium bodied, with med+ alcohol, medium acid, hints of spice, pepper, wood, and satiny tannins. Finishes with lingering grace. 88-90 points. $45.

Dom. La Barroche Signature 2006

Medium red in the glass, the Signature has a light but breath-stoppingly gorgeous nose of red cherries, faint liquorice, blackberry, and tobacco. Unfortunately I think this bottle was a tiny bit oxidized. In the mouth it was very light, med- body, med+ alcohol, med- acid, reminiscent of an '04 Rayas Pignan I had at Clo. Silky tannins led to a long finish with faint pepper and roasted papad, again similar to the Rayas Pignan, but with more fruit. This wasn't a favorite of my companions, but I liked it. I won't rate it due to the slight oxidation. $59

Dom. La Barroche Fiancée 2006

Dark purple in the glass, the Fiancée initially had an amazing nose of cured meats and dark berries, that eventually seemed over-the hill. Not oxidized, just like it had been left out overnight but hadn't started to turn to acetaldehyde yet. In the mouth it was full-bodied and fleshy with beautiful fruit, medium acid and medium tannins. Something really smelled off about the nose, though, so I won't rate it. $70


Note:
*IBMP (2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine) is a compound associated with green grass/bell pepper aromas in sauvignon blanc and Bordeaux varietals. Some tasters' thresholds are on the order of 15 parts per trillion.
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I am a strange, strange human being

It's been a year and 3 months since I started my wine journey, and sometimes I feel like I haven't gone anywhere. In fact I haven't gone anywhere - I'm still at school, living in a dorm room down the hall from where I lived last year. But whenever I meet someone new and taste wine, or talk about wine, I am reminded that I'm actually a subtly different species. How have I changed?

1. I smell everything. I can be distracted by familiar scents as easily as if a friend called my name. I have identified the principle ingredients in an Odwalla shake by smell alone. There are at least 2 classmates of mine who I can smell as soon as they enter a room.

2. I drink whites at room temperature. People always question this, and I try not to preach that everyone should, but after I tried it once I was hooked. Hey, I had a middle school teacher who microwaved his coke. Now that was weird.

3. I spit out of habit. If you get between me and the spit bucket, I will shamelessly lean in front of you and let loose. If there's a decently shaped bucket, or even better, a garbage can available, I will spit from a comfortable distance of 3-4 feet. Don't give me that look. My aim is perfect.

4. I'm noisy when I drink liquids. Water, milk, coffee, tea, juice - I'll swirl, sniff, slurp, swish, and aerate all of them. So sue me. I like to actually taste what I'm drinking.

5. I'm shy when it comes to talking about wine with new people. Until I establish that someone is open-minded about wine, I keep the conversation superficial. I learned this the hard way when I found myself on the receiving end of a cartoonish anti-Parker tirade.

6. I have a low acetaldehyde threshold, which means I'm every wine bar and tasting room's nightmare. At first I told people, but then they stopped believing me, or rather, my nose. Now I just keep it to myself and don't rate the wine.

7. Anytime I hear the words "Yellow Tail" I involuntarily go through a rapid cycle of emotions. First disdain. Then guilt at feeling disdain. Then appreciation of the sugar-acid balance they've achieve. Then annoyance that American's are such suckers for high sugar and high acidity (Coke anyone?). Then disinterest at the industrial nature of the wine. Then guilt...

8. I have a corkscrew with me at all times. Wing-style corkscrews give me indigestion on sight.

9. I bring my own glasses. Go ahead, look at me funny. I can smell my wine and you can't. When people ask me whether the shape of the glass matters, I fight the urge to look at them incredulously. Even two identical glasses will smell different, depending on who's holding them and a hundred other variables.

10. I don't take notes on everything I taste anymore. Something changed in my gut when I broke 365 CellarTracker notes in under a year. I no longer had the patience to try to learn from wines that didn't excite me. When the best wine I'd ever tasted was a $19 McLaren Vale Shiraz, I payed attention to everything, even wines I didn't like at all. Now when I taste a generic wine that isn't delicious or at least interesting, I forget about it immediately. A wise man once said: Life is too short to drink bad wine.
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CLO Wine Bar, NYC

In the Time Warner center, between Per Se and Masa, a simple white table stands, surrounded by a chic enclosure of Enomatic wine dispensers. The tabletop is alive with an interactive projected display that allows you to browse a hundred or so wine-by-the-glass selections, including region/appellation info and tasting notes. After choosing a selection, you take your glass to the appropriate Enomatic station, insert the tab card provided by a friendly server, and voilà! You are the proud new owner of exactly 4 ounces of slightly frothing, tasty beverage. There is also a small menu of cheeses, charcuterie, and other drinks.

At first Clo felt like some sort of bizzare wine-themed space ship out of a Douglas Adams book ("Share and enjoy!"), but the server and sommelier-on-hand were approachable, helpful, and friendly. The slightly clumsy interface had one unexpected consequence: complete strangers talked with each other about the tricky interface, and ultimately about wine.

There are few people more irrepressible than a wine lover who suddenly finds himself in the company of others sharing his strange obsession, and I quickly found myself deep in conversation with a chef from Napa, a group of tourists from Belgium, and a visual designer from NYC proper who graduated from my high school back in California. Such is the magic of Clo.

My one complaint is that they have discontinued the 2 oz taste program. I was looking forward to sampling several wines, but since they recently limited the serving size to 4 oz (customers complained 2oz looked skimpy in the glass), I contented myself with a fascinating, evolving '04 Rayas Pignan. The somm said that once Clo gets more traction, and a base of regular customers, they will try to add the tasting program in again.

Price: Like most wine bars this depends on the wine. Clo covers a broad spectrum, from several sub-$10 wines to a $100+ Leoville Las Cases (yes, $100 for 4 oz). Prices per glass were around 25% of retail price, far less than the industry standard. The food prices emphasized quality over quantity - small plates of cheeses and charcuterie in the $6-20 range.
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Getting Dumb with TheDumbPhase

I never wanted this blog to become a catalog of wine-related exploits, partly because on a student's budget my "exploits" aren't all that extraordinary. However I was recently invited to a tasting of wines that were of such a high caliber that I was intellectually and olfactorily disoriented. From the point of view of a beginning taster, this tasting provided excellent examples of different styles, opening my palate to regions I was previously unfamiliar with.

Here are the wines (minus a couple Champagnes), and the approximate prices (from the Wine Advocate website):

Italy:
03 Collazzi Rosso (Toscana) $35
05 Tasca D'Almerita Lamùri (Sicilia) 90pts (AG*) $20
01 R. Voerzio Barolo Cerequio 95pts (AG) $200
01 Gaja Sperss (Langhe) 93pts (AG) $220
1999 Allegrini Amarone (Valpolicella) 95pts (DT*) $80

France:
1983 Château Cantemerle (Haut-Medoc) 91pts (RP*) $100
00 E. Guigal Côte-Rôtie 'La Mouline' 91pts (RP) $300
03 Château Rieussec (Sauternes) 96pts (RP) $80

California:
03 Colgin IX Estate (Napa) 95pts (RP) $325
05 Alban Vineyards Grenache (CA) 96pts (RP) $120
05 W. Hansel Pinot 'The North Slope' (91-93 RP) $50

Spain:
03 Bodegas Pintia (Spain, Toro) 92pts (JM*) $50

Australia:
03 Lost Highway Shiraz(McLaren Vale) 93pts (RP) $45

Stay tuned for tasting notes! All I will divulge now is that the Guigal La Mouline stole the show.

*All notes are from The Wine Advocate - AG: Antonio Galloni, DT: Daniel Thomases, RP: Robert Parker, JM: Jay Miller
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An Engineer Tastes Wine

I'm not a wine critic or a winemaker. As a chemical engineering student, most of my time is spent in a materials science lab, where I work with surfactants and strange forms of silica. Even back when I did study yeast, I was more interested in genomic analysis than the bouquet of their by-products. In my spare moments, though, I can inevitably be found with my nose buried in a wine glass or a book about wine.

I first became interested in wine after sampling a few bottles with friends on my 21st birthday. I was, and still am intrigued by this ancient liquid's unpredictability. It's nearly impossible to know what aromas and flavors the next glass holds, no matter how much you have read about the producer, region, vintage, and cuvée. A bottle of wine can transform dramatically over years, and a glass of wine can change with equal guile over minutes. It's a scientist's nightmare, a substance that cannot be categorized or classified with any certainty, and yet there is information in each glass - wines can speak unerringly of terroir, vintage, and varietal. Scent, and its inseparable counterpart, taste, is the most primal and intuitive of senses, and the most strongly linked to memory. A single sip can transport you to a memorable dinner several years ago. Yet romantic and ephemeral as wine can be, it is ultimately a real substance, made up of identifiable molecular species. What can science tell us about tasting wine?

First, let's examine our sense of smell. The human nose is like a vast array of unique keyholes, and each scent molecule is a key. When the key matches with the keyhole (in reality a complex protein receptor), a nerve sends a signal to your brain that says "cloves" or "green pepper," identifying the scent. As the analogy implies, our sense of smell is incredibly accurate at the molecular level. A classic example is the pair of molecules S-carvone and R-carvone, which are perfect mirror images of each other, yet the first smells of caraway and the second of spearmint. There are exceptions - we can be fooled by similarly-shaped molecules, and we sometimes register several molecules in combination as a single scent - but for the most part, smell is highly specific.



In other words, when you smell apricot in the glass, it's probably because there is a substance in apricot that is also in the wine. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of different substances that can be produced by our complex little fungiform friends known as wine yeasts, and scientists have not yet isolated and identified all of them, so the next time you smell something strange in a wine, like black pepper or capsicum, know that it's not just your imagination.

Conversely, don't turn your nose up at a fellow taster who seems to smell something that no one else does. We've all been at tastings where everyone likes a certain wine except one person, who claims it smells corked, or oxidized. That taster is probably right. Everyone has different thresholds for different scent molecules, and these can vary widely. Below this threshold you cannot detect the substance. In the key-and-lock analogy, some keyholes are rustier than others, preventing the keys from getting in easily, and your friend may have different set of rusty keyholes than you do. When only one person in a group perceives the wine as being corked, reason suggests the TCA level is just below everyone else's threshold. With practice, you will develop a good idea of how your thresholds for different substances compare to your friends'.

Threshold variation is largely genetic, and highly variable. Combine this with simple thermodynamics, and we can understand that swirling the wine and swishing it around in one's mouth during tasting change the flavor profile you perceive. Let's back up: When you swirl wine, you increase the population of aroma molecules in the air above the liquid surface. Some aromas you could not perceive before are now above your threshold. Other aromas that you detected before swirling have become more intense, or have become masked by secondary scents. Similarly, when you aerate the wine in your mouth, you warm it and form a temporary emulsion with air – again, increasing the gas-phase concentration of aroma molecules. You perceive a different "picture" of the wine than from the glass.

What does this science mean? First, wine is complicated. What you taste depends as much on yourself as on the wine. Second, if you do the simple swirl, sniff, and swallow that so many "wine educators" recommend (see the Wine Spectator's how-to videos), you only see one side of the wine. It's like looking at a sculpture from the front, without seeing its other sides. To see the full 360 degrees of the wine, you need to sniff softly, sniff deeply, sniff when the wine is still, sniff after swirling, aerate the wine in your mouth, swish it around, then make sure you exhale after spitting or swallowing to observe the retronasal finish. The dainty taster who delicately sniffs Lafite from four inches above the glass might as well peer at a Picasso through a pinhole.

Far from demystifying wine, science provides remarkable insight as to the depth and extent of wine's complexities. It reassures us that our often rhapsodic tasting notes have validity. It tells us to have confidence in what we smell, even if no one else smells it. It disabuses us of the notion that we must be delicate and proper when tasting wine. Thermodynamics can tell us why wine changes in the glass, if not precisely how. Gas chromatography can identify hundreds of aroma compounds that appear regularly in wine, but cannot match them precisely to the organoleptic phenomena of smell. Wine lovers can learn something from science, true, but perhaps scientists could also learn a thing or two from wine.
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The Scholium Project: 2007 'Naucratis' (Lost Slough Vineyard)

In the past few weeks, I've stumbled across wines from two wine makers whose approaches are so original, and deliberate, that they immediately captured my attention. As luck would have it, I found the last bottle of Sean Thackrey's Pleiades XV in the Corkscrew, and it now sits on my shelf, awaiting sufficient courage to open it. Even though it's the largest production of all the wines produced by that medieval tinkerer, it's not easy to find.

I was floored when I saw The Scholium Project '07 Naucratis at the new CoolVines store. Apart from Abe Schoener's extraordinary philosophy (which seems to make so much more sense than everyone elses), there were only 275 cases of this wine produced! At $5 below the winery's own price, this was a no-brainer.

Schoener is known for making unique wines from small vineyards. So what? Doesn't everyone these days? But there's something compelling about Schoener's eloquently-written credo. After reading it, one can't help but admire his aim: to display the excellence inherent in the vineyard, rather than use it as an ingredient. Of course the particular way in which he displays this excellence is quite original. Perhaps in aiming for flavor ripeness, not Brix, and long macerations he produces interesting wines, that communicate secondary flavors with clarity, but also sometimes result in huge, alcoholic beasts that many people can't stand.

I was sold at "small-production", "vineyard-driven", and "unique", but when I also greatly respect Schoener's unabashed extremeness. Wine isn't all balance, balance, balance as the dusty old British writers say. Rather, wine (as life) is a balance between balance and extremes. Read it over again, I'm fairly sure it makes sense. With that in mind, I was more than eager to try this wine, which did not disappoint:

The Scholium Project 2007 Naucratis, Lost Slough Vineyard (100% Verdelho).

Pale green straw in the glass, this wine has a beautifully expressive (if not high intensity) nose of honeysuckle, papaya, cool stones, and traces of grass, genmai, smoke, straw, and lime. In the mouth it offers up sweet, luscious, beautiful fruit with medium-to-full body and gorgeously soft texture. Undeniably delicious, with excellent acidity, the fruit lasts over 30 seconds on the finish. The flavors are well-integrated and harmonious, and it's so damn yummy I'm smacking my fist on the table repeatedly. The alcohol fumes burn my nasal membranes, and it's definitely hot in the mouth (14.9%), but you know what? I don't care.

Score: 88-92 points.

Availability: Only 275 cases were made. $22.50 at CoolVines.

Food pairing: I would like to drink this with a plain baguette and a hard, salty cheese, perhaps piave, or even some saltier bleu cheeses, like Roquefort.

Tasting conditions: I tasted at room temperature, as I taste all whites. Glasses: Riedel Bdx, Ravenscroft Impitoyable.

Conflict of interest: I think CoolVines is a cool new store. No I'm not being paid to advertise for them. I do think they have a great deal on this particular wine, though.

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The new kid on the block!

It's definitely a happy day for wine lovers in the Princeton area. The wine store CoolVines just completed it's first week in it's new location, on Harrison and Nassau. Here's the rundown:

The location is a bit out-of-the-way for students. In particular, it is not within easy walking distance of the Palmer Square/Witherspoon St. area. On the other hand, it is within range of the Blue Point Grill, which is probably the best BYO within reach of student budgets.

The design of the store is elegant and innovative, if a little cramped. Wines are organized by color, body (light-med-full), and price (the cheapest wines are at the bottom, so bring kneepads!). The island at the center of the store functions both as a register and a tasting station, during in-store events.

Their selection needs a bit of work, as they themselves will admit. Currently it seems to be about 1/6th the size of the Corkscrew's. I'll be honest - I hadn't heard of a single wine on their shelves, but the first wine I purchased (a Chinon) was a solid selection. Perhaps their under-the-radar-wines approach is a good thing. They also have selections from New Zealand, Australia, South America, and South Africa - none of which are represented at the Corkscrew.

Their beer selection is already one of the most exciting shelves of alcohol in any store in town. I saw Dogfish Head, Stone, and a bunch of lambics that I will certainly be back for. In addition the spirits section is getting an overhaul, since Eric Mihan is on board. For those of you who didn't shop regularly at the Corkscrew, Eric is a spirits specialist, but also knows his stuff when it comes to wine. He's the go-to guy for cheese pairings, as he used to run Whole Foods' cheese counter.




The best thing about CoolVines is that they have seen what the Corkscrew has failed to acknowledge, and what California wineries have known all along: tastings, tastings, tastings! CoolVines offers free in-store tastings every Wednesday (5-8) and Saturday (2-5). The glasses are little sherry copitas that are oh-so-cute! In contrast, the Corkscrew hasn't had a tasting for months.

Furthermore, CoolVines offers a wide range of services that the Corkscrew doesn't, including wine service at BYO restaurants. While I doubt many students will be taking advantage of that, the wealthier members of the community will find it convenient.

To sum up: Check out CoolVines, but don't abandon the Corkscrew just yet. Mr. Chapuis is definitely the man for France (that is, anti-Parker France), and his French selection is an order-of-magnitude more extensive than CoolVines. For wine geeks who are used to browsing by region, the Corkscrew's layout is probably less of a headache than the CoolVines layout. However CoolVines is more friendly to those of us who haven't memorized thousands of obscure French AOC's, and want to pick up something that will go well with dinner the same night. Plus the people there are cool.
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