Q. What’s the difference (if any) between syrah and petite sirah?
A. Big difference. Syrah (also called shiraz) is a peppery red wine grape that provides the core of most great wines from the Rhone Valley of France. It’s widely grown in Australia and has also made a name for itself in California and Washington.
Petite sirah (sometimes confusingly spelled petite syrah) is another name for durif, which is a French cross between syrah and peloursin. Petite sirah is quite popular in California, where it produces dark, tannic, somewhat rustic red wines. Among the top producers are Peachy Canyon, Ursa, La Filice, Eaglepoint Ranch, Parducci and Concannon.
We have reached a moment in the modern history of the Washington wine industry where some of the veteran winemakers are at the height of their long careers. They are making wines with confidence and style. Their decades of work have taught them a great deal about extracting greatness from the unique variations in weather and terrain that define eastern Washington viticulture.
I met Brian Carter some 25 years ago when he was making a lively range of wines at the original Paul Thomas winery in Bellevue. Along with the excellent Rieslings, chardonnays and cabernets were a most unusual pair of dry wines, made from Bartlett pear and rhubarb respectively. When Brian Carter left the winery in 1988, its glory days quickly drew to a close.
Fast forward to a lovely late winter Saturday afternoon in 2008. The tasting room at Brian Carter Cellars (14419 Woodinville Redmond Road; 425-806-9463) is packed with customers happily sampling new releases and chatting with the winemaker. Carter, entering his 29th vintage in Washington, has never looked more at home. After many years of winemaking and consulting for Paul Thomas, Washington Hills, Apex, Hedges, McCrea and Kestrel, among others, he is now pouring a delicious mix of blended wines for his own winery.
It is no exaggeration to say they are the best wines he has ever made.
I am not the first to take notice. The Auction for Washington Wines named Carter its Vintner of the Year in 2007. He is the only three-time winner of the Enological Society’s Grand Prize. His Apex Cellars 2000 Syrah was named the best wine (out of 350) at the Thomas Jefferson Wine and Food Classic, and brought him the coveted Thomas Jefferson Cup.
Despite the accolades, Carter remains humble to the point of shyness, and has somehow avoided the spotlight more often than he has been in it. He seems more comfortable talking about deficit irrigation, fruit set and the intricacies of blending than broadcasting his own impressive track record.
Blending is Carter’s forté, and turns a disadvantage (lack of estate-grown fruit) into an asset. He sources most of his grapes from Yakima Valley vineyards, showing off the valley’s cooler climate flavors in his Euro-styled blends. That generally translates into wines with moderate alcohol levels (averaging around 13.5 percent), sharp acids and a laudable restraint with new oak.
His most affordable (and justifiably popular) wine is named Abracadabra. “I overbuy everything,” Carter explains, “so I can have maximum flexibility blending (the main) Brian Carter wines. The rest goes into Abracadabra — same wines, same barrels.” Abracadabra ($20) is what I call a “kitchen sink” wine, mixing numerous vineyards and varietals. In 2005, notes Carter, seven types of grapes “went into the cauldron.” Abracadabra’s magic is that the finished wine always adds up to something more than a mish-mash. The latest displays lovely, ripe fruit, polished tannins, and a lengthy, tasty finish of chocolate-covered cherries.
The Brian Carter Cellars 2006 Oriana White ($24) is a captivating blend of roussanne, viognier and Riesling. Lovely scents of citrus blossom, lemon wax and tea open into a fleshy, luxurious mid-palate, bursting with fruits.
Byzance is Brian Carter Cellars’ southern Rhone red blend, a variable mix of grenache, syrah and mourvèdre. The seductive 2004 Byzance ($30) offers myriad pleasures, from its floral underpinnings to flavors of fresh red apples, tart berries and plums.
L’Etalon is its Bordeaux-styled cousin. The 2004 L’Etalon (also $30) is three-quarters cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc, with merlot and petit verdot completing the mix. It’s a sexy, graceful wine whose flavors evolve through mixed berry/cherry fruits and on into plum, coffee, cocoa and spice.
First of the 2005 reds is the Brian Carter Cellars 2005 Tuttorosso ($30), a Super Tuscan style blend of sangiovese, cabernet sauvignon and syrah. Tangy acids support plummy fruit, and scents of sandalwood add complexity.
All of these wines are distributed by Vehrs, and may also be purchased at the winery tasting room.
Q. Can you please offer some advice about how to approach the wines at big wine tasting events? It seems challenging, some would suggest impossible, to give the wines due consideration in such a setting.
A. You ask an excellent question. With Taste Washington being held in Seattle April 5-6 and a host of other major events coming this spring, I imagine a lot of consumers are wondering how to organize their time.
Typically there are hundreds of wines being poured. Even professional tasters, who spit carefully, have palate fatigue after 25 or 30 wines. Consumers with less experience and less willingness to spit will need to do some advance planning in order to maximize the value that these tastings offer. Remember, it’s not about the number of wines you taste. What is important is tasting the right wines, paying attention, and building your personal wine database.
You need to have a plan. Take a few minutes to think about your personal goals. What grapes interest you? What vineyards? What types of wine? Do you want to explore new wineries or new varietals? Or maybe taste every syrah you can find?
Study the program for a minute or two, and think about how you can take away some solid information to build your own knowledge. Focus on at least a dozen, maybe 15 or 20 wines that fit the topic you have chosen. After that, if you still have the energy, explore at random and have a good time — spitting carefully of course.
Tucked away on a quiet corner a few blocks from bustling downtown Walla Walla is Forgeron Cellars. Winemaker Marie-Eve Gilla is one of the growing number of French-born and trained winemakers who have made Washington state their home. With little fanfare, she has been developing vineyard sources, fine-tuning her winemaking, and making excellent, Euro-styled wines.
Gilla arrived in America in the early 1990s, determined to use her French training to make wine in the New World. She started, as most do, with the grunt work — pushing hoses, washing tanks and cleaning barrels. First at Argyle in Oregon, then at Covey Run, Hogue Cellars and Gordon Brothers, while she methodically worked her way up the ladder, building the expertise and street cred that enabled her to find the financial backing to open Forgeron in 2001.
With typical French dedication to cooler vineyard sites, she has sought out those vineyards that could deliver the fruit she wants to make her wines her way.
“I’m really picky,” admits Gilla, who is married to Long Shadows winemaker Gilles Nicault. “I want things just so. I’m still trying to define what will work year in and year out. It’s about the grapes, the site, the relationship with the grower.”
As an example, she points to chardonnay.
“There’s a lot of chardonnay in the world, but not that much good chardonnay,” she candidly admits. “It’s a cash cow.”
Chardonnay, oddly enough, is one of the wines Forgeron has become identified with, along with — believe it or not — zinfandel.
“You can make wine for yourself, whether people like it or not,” says Gilla, “but you have to also see what people like and want and move to that direction. By staying small you are there for your customers and you have to understand what your customers want. So when we see that the chardonnay is doing very well, we’re increasing the production and focusing on being very consistent with it.”
Consistency has been a growing strength of Forgeron wines. The chardonnays are given a rather lush treatment with generous new oak — Gilla’s one experiment (in 2004) with an unoaked style will not be repeated. The 2006 Forgeron “Columbia Valley” Chardonnay ($25) is the best yet, with the unusual component of 2 percent muscat adding some lovely floral highlights to a wine that is solidly anchored in citrus, pear and peach.
Pick of the week
Boom Boom 2006 Syrah, $15. This moderately priced syrah from Charles Smith Wines offers a boatload of flavor and freshness without sacrificing too much depth and complexity. You’ll find plenty of syrah snap and sizzle; blueberry and boysenberry fruit underscored with layers of carefully managed vanilla, tobacco and silky tannins.
Q. You have frequently covered the correct retention methods for opened bottles of table wines. What should be the procedures and life expectancy of those fortified wines we tend to retain forever, such as port, sherry and vermouth?
A. Let’s focus on port wines first. Because ports contain distilled spirits (brandy), they are not subject to the type of disintegration as ordinary, unfortified wines. However, only vintage ports from Portugal should be cellar-aged and can be expected to improve over time. A recent tasting of vintage and late bottled vintage ports, conducted by port expert Roy Hersh, showed that wines from the 1977, 1983 and 1985 vintages were now drinking quite well, but in no danger of moving quickly past their peak.
Tawny ports and other, non-vintage styles are generally meant to be consumed within a few years of bottling. Once opened, they should be stored in the bottle in a cool, dark cupboard — not in a decanter — and they will keep for up to a month. I have much less experience with sherry wines of Jerez, but again there is a wide range of styles. The light, dry, salty styles should be consumed like any white wine. The dark, sweet, dessert sherries may hold well in the bottle for a week or two after being opened.
You are on your own with vermouth — it is not something I am familiar with.
It’s perhaps no more than a curious coincidence, but have you noticed that some of the best Washington wines are being made in Oregon? Winemakers Peter Rosback (Sineann), Andrew Rich (Andrew Rich Wines) and David O’Reilly (Owen Roe) — though by no means the only Oregonians to mine the Washington mother lode — consistently produce thrilling wines from this state’s vines.
Sineann’s Celilo Vineyard Gewurztraminer ($18) is always a standout; the 2006 offers stone fruits, refreshing acids and a streak of licorice. Peter Rosback’s red wines include a 2006 Champoux Vineyard Merlot ($36) — not shy at 15 percent alcohol — that wraps its super-ripe cherry/berry fruit in rich layers of coffee, toffee and smoke. Better still is his Sineann 2006 Champoux Vineyard Cabernet Franc ($48), which captures the grape’s earthy, herbal elements while keeping the fruit tight and muscular.
Best of all is Sineann’s 2006 Cold Creek Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon ($48). Chateau Ste. Michelle owns this 35-year-old vineyard, and recently decided to begin offering Cold Creek grapes to a few select winemakers. Rosback has imprinted his definitive, high-impact style on the wine, while retaining the best characteristics of the Cold Creek site. Still tight and muscular, this world-class cabernet captures the dense mix of earth, herb, bark, currant, berry and mineral that marks Cold Creek as unique.
Andrew Rich, who labels himself a “Vinarchist,” makes his Washington wines at the Winemakers’ Studio in Carlton, Oregon. Like Rosback, he scours the Columbia Valley for grapes, with a particular interest in Rhone varieties. Among his recent releases, I especially enjoyed the 2006 Roussanne ($20), a creamy, luscious panorama of apricots, tropical fruits and nutmeg.
Rich sources much of his fruit from Red Mountain’s Ciel du Cheval vineyard. His Andrew Rich 2005 Ciel du Cheval Grenache ($25) makes most domestic versions seem grapey and simple by comparison. Here are beautifully mixed fruit flavors including plums, currants and berries, finishing with a trail of subtle, chocolatey spice.
Other gems: the Andrew Rich 2005 Mésalliance Red, a powerful blend of merlot, cabernet franc and syrah; the Andrew Rich 2005 Ciel du Cheval Petit Verdot ($40), dark, tannic and muscular; and a pair of outstanding syrahs. The Andrew Rich 2005 Les Vignes En Face Syrah ($45) is a 50/50 blend of Klipsun and Ciel du Cheval barrels, jam-packed with blueberry, blackberry and black cherry fruit, backed with barrel flavors of smoke, tar and licorice.
The other Andrew Rich 2005 Syrah ($24) is a young, juicy, assertive wine that matches its blackberry and black cherry fruit against a strong streak of smoky licorice. Also worth noting is the Andrew Rich 2005 Coup d’Etat Red ($25), a tangy blend with fresh, sharp, briskly acidic flavors of tart raspberries.
Saving the best news for last, I sat down recently with David O’Reilly and learned about his new Washington-based winery and vineyard project. For the past decade, O’Reilly has been making collectible (dare I say cult) wines under the Owen Roe label, focusing specifically on premium Yakima Valley vineyards. He also makes some 50,000 cases of value-priced wines under the O’Reilly and Sharecropper labels, the former featuring his engaging Russian wolfhound on the label.
O’Reilly, a native of Northern Ireland who holds a degree in medieval philosophy from Thomas Aquinas College, has purchased the Outlook vineyard and the Apex winery facility in Sunnyside. Apart from his own wines, he plans to custom crush for a variety of projects, including a new lineup of wines bottled in old-fashioned, quart-size milk jugs. “I want to bring people to Sunnyside,” says O’Reilly, “and show them how wine is made, and make ourselves a destination. You won’t be able to buy these wines at retail, only at the winery, and only in the Pacific Northwest, so we can recycle the bottles.”
Naturally modest and even a bit shy, O’Reilly is the sort of gifted winemaker who has the ability to showcase what is best and most distinctive about Yakima Valley fruit. “There’s nothing magical going on,” he insists. “I take great fruit and we don’t screw anything up. There’s nothing done that’s unique. We punch down by hand, we don’t pump the must, we rack by gravity. Every grape will show the best aspect it has if it’s grown in the right place.”
Current Owen Roe releases are as good as anything he’s ever done. From DuBrul vineyard fruit there is the opulently rich Owen Roe 2006 Riesling ($21), a nectar-like mix of honey, wildflower, peach and apricot. Its companion is the fleshy, barrel-fermented Owen Roe 2006 Chardonnay ($28), graceful and refined, with a hint of caramel in the extended finish.
Owen Roe’s DuBrul Vineyard reds include the 2005 Merlot ($45) and 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon ($60). Yes, these are expensive wines, but in the context of comparable wines from California or France, they more than deliver good value.
The merlot — 100 percent varietal — is sweet and pure, a mélange of cherries, coffee and caramel. The Yakima Valley cabernet matches cassis and cherry fruit with streaks of tobacco and hints of mint, herb and earth.
Among the less expensive Washington reds, look for the 2006 Sharecropper’s Cabernet Sauvignon ($18), the 2006 Owen Roe Sinister Hand ($24) and the 2006 Owen Roe Ex Umbris Syrah ($24).
Pick of the week
O’Reilly’s 2006 Oregon Pinot Noir, $15. Much as I love David O’Reilly’s Washington wines, it would be foolish to ignore this exceptional Oregon bottling. O’Reilly’s may well be the best value pinot noir made in Oregon, year in and year out. It’s firm and full-bodied, perfectly ripe, with lovely spices that range from pepper to cinnamon and allspice. The fruit lingers in the mid-palate, round and tangy, with flavors of cherry and plum. Rich and satisfying, it’s big enough to pair with dark poultry, salmon and even veal.
What I would term “authentic” red wines are those that best and most clearly express the specific flavors of the grape, the soil and the vintage from which they are made. When tasting wines that are made from a single grape varietal, as opposed to blended wines (which can certainly be just as good), it is easier to identify specific varietal flavors.
The same holds true for the vineyard. If a wine comes from a single vineyard, and if that vineyard is capable of delivering to the vines a unique flavor imprint, and if that imprint is nurtured by the winemaking and not buried in oaky pyrotechnics, then it too will contribute to the wine’s authenticity.
Finally, if the place where the vineyard is located experiences wide variations in the weather from one vintage to the next (France, anyone?), then you may have the additional pleasure of tasting wines that actually reflect different ripening conditions. Let the corporate mega-wineries focus on creating wines that taste exactly the same, year in and year out. Such consistent sameness is the bane of authenticity.
This happy conjunction of grape, vineyard and climate characterizes many of the Loire Valley’s red wines. And yet these remain some of the least-known wines from all of France. Why?
Loire Valley producers seem to go out of their way to design confusing labels, loaded with indecipherable words. The same winery may have a dozen or more wines, each with a completely different label. Of course, as in much of Europe, wines are named for the place rather than the grape, which adds to the confusion.
Most consumers would be hard-pressed to identify white wines from Sancerre as sauvignon blancs. Who on earth has a clue that Sancerre rouge is pinot noir? What grape do you suppose creates the hearty red wines from Chinon, Bourgueil, St. Nicolas de Bourgueil and Saumur Champigny? If you said cabernet franc, you’re on your way to Master of Wine certification.
Consumers who want authentic wines, who prefer less oak and alcohol, more acid and mineral, who appreciate red wines with unique flavors and don’t want to spend more than $15 or $20 to get them, must be willing to do some work, especially in these days of the crashing dollar. Step outside the box of cheap pinot noir from California and look to Sancerre. Do you like the cabernet francs of Washington? Then by all means explore some of these leaner, chewier examples from the Loire.
For rounder, sweeter, fruitier wines, look for the 2005 vintage. For leaner, tighter wines with racy acids, compelling minerality and, in some cases, a longer cellar life, 2004 and 2006 would be the best choices.
Pinot noir lovers take note: The 2005 Reuilly “La Sablière” from Pascal Desroches Reuilly at $15 is a lovely bottle, offering sweet cherry fruit and scents of rosewater. Chavignol’s Henri Bourgeois makes a tart, tasty 2005 Grande Réserve Sancerre Rouge ($22) worth hunting for. Grape Expectations distributes.
The Loire offers an abundance of red wines from cabernet franc grapes. Those grown on gravel soil tend to be lighter, fruitier and more forward (also less expensive). The richer, more tannic wines are grown on tufa (or tuffeau) — calcareous rock that has been excavated for centuries to build chateaux and cathedrals throughout the region.
Chinon (SHE-non) and Bourgueil (BOOR-goy) are the two best-known appellations. Recommended producers (and bottlings) include Charles Joguet, Domaine de la Noblaie (“Les Chiens-Chiens” and “Pierre de Tuf”), Domaine Pierre Breton (“Clos Senechal”), Domaine Philippe Alliet (“Vieilles Vignes” and “L’Huisserie”), Domaine de la Chevalerie (“Galichets” and “Busardières”) and Wilfrid Rousse (“Clos de la Roche”).
In a recent visit to many of these properties, I tasted back vintages as old as 1989 and found that the wines not only age beautifully, they really require at least five years at a minimum in order to round off some of the rougher tannins. It’s worth noting also that, although many of the new generation of vignerons (grower/winemakers) practice sustainable, organic and even biodynamic viticulture, few choose to boast about it. It is simply considered the right thing to do.
I was pleased to discover the delicious, fruit-driven wines from the appellations of St. Nicolas de Bourgueil and Saumur-Champigny (SUH–more SHAM–pee–knee). Less tannic and intense (and less expensive) than the Chinons and Bourgueils, they still capture the unoaked pleasures of the cabernet franc grape and the stony soils in which it is grown.
Frederic Mabileau (“Les Rouillères”, “Racines” and “Coutures”), Domaine Filliatreau (“Vieilles Vignes”) and especially Vignerons de Saumur are exceptional. Vignerons de Saumur has two wines that are widely available in Seattle. Their 2005 Saumur-Champigny “Les Poyeux” ($15) and 2005 Saumur-Champigny “Les Vignobles” ($13) are loaded with cassis, berry and violet notes. Les Poyeux carries delicious whiffs of forest mushroom, which Les Vignobles has more rock, acid and grip.
Pick of the week
Winemaker’s Loft 2005 Red Table Wine, $13.
The Winemaker’s Loft is an incubator and winery in Prosser. Michael Haddox has just done a very limited first release, and the wines are excellent. The best value is his Red Table Wine, which may be ordered through the winery. It’s a blend of cabernet, merlot, syrah and more, giving a spicy and toasty red wine that was meant for a higher price point. The fruit is juicy and bursting with bright sweet berry flavors, and the generous oak adds cinnamon and butterscotch.