Last Sunday we smashed twenty Pumpkin beers, as well as a few pumpkins:
But tonight is different. It’s my birthday, and we can think of nothing better than free beer and a t-shirt (it’s called commitment). So we return to The Green Dragon.
Aside from the occasional Killer Pumpkin Festival, The Green Dragon updates its 62 rotating tapped kegs daily. We start with their own Green Tea Mead (good, easy, light) and a Pumpkin Porter, and then ponder micro, experimental beers from New Zealand to Germany and everywhere in between.
But what declared itself (betwixt domino moves) was Pelican Brewery’s Stormwatcher’s Winterfest, Barley Wine, from 2010:
She’s letting me win.
So, Barley…Wine. What the beelzebub is it? In short, Barley Wine is not a wine. It is a beer. But it is beer with wine-high alcohol (8-12%).
Around 1854, steampunk British beer-makers couldn’t grow grapes. All that rain hardly felt Mediterranean. So they brewed grains with higher gravities (denser sugars) and less water. Thus big, brooding, barely wine gave their wet winters an alternative to Port.
Fast forward to 2010, when Pelican Brewery’s Stormwatcher’s Winterfest aimed its cross-hairs at the cold, windswept coast of Pacific City on Oregon’s Coast.
Three years on, birthday at hand, I try it:
APPEARANCE:
It looks like opaque molasses. But look harder, and a clear, but deep, ruby, amber glows with a fine cream rim.
Piping hot, black cherry cobbler, laced with dark treacle or molasses crashes into our nostrils. Cherry jolly rancher in drag.
PALATE:
Notably sweet, with moderate acid, high, mouth-restructuring tannins, ember-glowing high alcohol (12.7%), and gobs of body.
FLAVORS:
Again, intensely hot black cherry cobbler with caramelized brown sugar, and a crumble topping own our palates. Treacle or molasses brood alongside. But then lavender, mint, nutmeg, and even shoe rubber evolve amidst the fruit. All these flavors persist past our attention spans.
CONCLUSION:
Pelican Brewery’s Stormwatcher’s Winterfest, Barley Wine, from 2010 is undoubtedly outstanding beer (5 of 5). It is rich, sweet, yet brittle and brooding: perfect for a cold night in. We switch back and forth with other beers. Somehow, instead of crushing them, it raises them. Drink it soon but drink it slowly. Otherwise, you might not remember your birthday.
Day 81 of our EU AUSTERITY DRINKING TOUR, we leave Paris for Tours.
Let the drinking begin!
Finally, Wayward Wine can sink its teeth into one of France’s wildest wine regions and Paris’ secret source: the Loire Valley.
TOURS
Our bags rattle, lost, over streams of cobbled streets. Tram lines, torn up decades ago, are returning (thanks environmentalists) but not yet functional (thanks unions).
With our hostel found, we unload our gypsy-train of luggage and jackets to explore the town.
Tours looks immaculate and charming after Paris. No crowds, no pickpockets, and even less snobbery. Far more Renaissance dwellings have survived the 19th century and modernism. This is just a nice place.
Apartments loom above town square.
We get lost again exploring the ancient, meandering streets.
A bit “House of the Seven Gables”, but French.
Once more we find ourselves starving and exhausted. A massive indoor market, rioting with vendors, provides salvation in the form of local bread and cheese. At the entrance stands Les Belles Caves:
Les Belles Caves beckons.
Wines and whiskeys line every surface except the ceiling. But local Loire wines in all formats dominate:
*Drooling*
We have to choose something, so we choose two things:
A 2006 and 2009 Cabernet Franc from just a few strokes downriver in Chinon.
Olga Raffault werks those ’70s shades.
Olga Raffault took over her husband’s vines after WWII. With Ernest Zenninger’s expertise, Olga’s wines became the textbook by which all other Loire reds were gauged. Working into her eighties, Olga died a few years ago. Her son Jean and wife Irma followed, and now her granddaughter Silvie with her husband Eric de la Vigerie have taken the reigns.
While we waited two hours for potatoes to bake…in a pan…on a dorm stove, we opened her Les Peuilles, 2009 first:
Now Wayward Wine featured another 2009 Chinon Cab Franc. We loved it, but it came from Jean’s (Olga’s son) Les Galluches vineyards (see Les Galluches post). So getting to try Olga’s 2009 for only 8 euro 50 excited us.
APPEARANCE
A legless, average purple color fills the glass.
AROMAS
Bright, youthful cherry and bell pepper aromas front a background of dark plum and vanilla cookie.
PALATE
This is dry, snappy, tart, and medium in body.
FLAVORS
Vibrant, simple, but cutting flavors of cranberry, raspberry sauce, and bell pepper lead to a somewhat short length.
Les Peuilles 2009 was a good (3 of 5) wine, perfect for a very French lunch, but probably too young to flaunt its stuff last fall.
So let’s step up our game:
Olga Raffault, Les Picasses, Cabernet Franc, Chinon, 2006:
Decent setting for a dorm room and a Chinon.
Olga had these vines planted when she started half a millennium ago.
APPEARANCE
The wine looks a clear, medium intense garnet with ruby edges.
AROMAS
Mature, strong aromas glow with violet perfume, anise, cigar, caramelized pear, prune, chocolate, and barnyard brett.
PALATE
The palate is dry, sparking with acidity, silk-grained tannins, and a medium body.
FLAVORS
Loaded flavors range from tart red apple, to a soft, woody cigar core, and a tangy lime finish with medium plus length.
Les Picasses 2006 is very good (4 of 5). Lovely wood spice, florals, earth, and silken, chai tea like characteristics compensate for lean fruit.
Clearly the wines of Olga Raffault are meant for the long haul. Enjoyable young, their restrained style will pay off for any willing to wait.
Feeling like Halloween in Central France.
With night upon us, we eat our potato bake and meet a young Israeli cheese-maker and an Australian divorcee. Next Monday, weather-permitting, we will bike the Loire’s vineyards.
I met Herb last week. He stood behind a table, in a black shirt and cap. His wines lined up in front of him. Nothing else. Flanking him towered suit and tie representatives from Oregon‘s famed Pinot Noir producers. They had flyers, business cards, banners, and slideshows of vineyard porn on small screens.
I tried their wines, heard their soliloquies, but kept returning to Herb. His black, cracked hands poured each bottle. He said even less. I felt that he itched to return to his vines, tanks, and family in Southern, Oregon.
ROGUE VALLEY
That bottom green blotch is Rogue Valley.
The Rogue Valley arcs over the fringes of South East Oregon. Protection from high hills and deep river valleys make this Oregon’s driest and warmest AVA. But it’s still Oregon. Just over 20 wineries and a thousand acres struggle to ripen grapes in this wild, cool climate.
Herb Quady left a posh Associate Winemaker gig at California’s rebellious, Rhône Ranging, Bonny Doon Vineyard (see post), and took a risk on the Rogue. Since 2005, he has planted his family and vines here, morphing a rally-cross slope littered with rusted vehicles into vineyards.
I loved Herb’s wines. His Steelhead Run Vineyard Viognier is sky-lit, floral, citric, and very good (4 of 5). Other wines show great aspiration. But as Fall cools, my weekly drink would have to be:
Herb sourced this from the first vintage of his own organic Syrah vineyard (clones 470 and 877), blended with four of his favorite neighboring growers. Sorting is hand done, but some stem and underripe fruit stays in for complexity. 12 months of aging in large barrels aim to showcase the fruit.
APPEARANCE
Dark ruby color runs right to the rim, thanks to thorough extraction and no filtering.
AROMAS
Extra bold, youthful esters of dry vanilla, tobacco spice, white pepper, and maraschino cherry waft to my nose.
PALATE
The dryness, higher acid, moderate tannin, alcohol (13.5), and body all point toward a Syrah that is neither California, nor Australia, nor Southern Rhône.
FLAVORS
Edgy but forgiving flavors of drying plum, tart maraschino cherry, tobacco smoke, and white pepper follow suit for quite a length. I blink and think I am in the Crozes-Hermitage: home of bright, unheavy, cherried, mineral, pure Syrah.
4-2,A is cool climate Syrah. Food is its friend but it tastes delightful alone and very good (4 of 5). One could cellar it for five years or more and still find something lovely. The 12 months of oak barrel, at times, exceed the lovely, bracing, cherry fruit. But without that char and spice, this would be too simple.
Quady North’s wines show great promise. For tonight, with leaves turning, I would drink Herb’s 4-2,A 2008 Syrah.
This Monday’s EU Austerity Drinking Tour finds us winding up our last days in Paris.
We revisit Montmarte and Sacre Coeur to find both changed. Today, the sun’s glare brings out tourists and pick pockets. Inside, a moment of song and ritual seems lovely, but crowded.
Tumbling down Montmarte towards the city center we halt at Le Repaire de Bacchus: a wine-geek oasis in this urban desert.
Trying not to move in.
This small bottle shop on 14 Rue Rambuteau, fills its dark walls with hand picked bottles. Yes, it is chain, but a small one, and such a salve to France’s omnipresent, redundant Nicolas wine shops
The range of value organic, grower, and cult wines from all over France bewilders us. After a negligible conversation in French, we buy two wines.
First, Maison Rouge‘s, 2007 Corbières. The letters “CO HO LA” run across its fake cork label. Not short for a type of salmon, CO HO LA abbreviates the latin “Cor Hominis Laetificat” or it Gladdens Man’s Heart. And does it.
Our glasses fill with purple squid ink, it’s tentacles grip the clear walls.
Powered aromas of hot, black berry start the show, followed by earth, cacao powder, and melted iron.
Past all the fruit, this is dry, with noted medium acidity, fat, soft tannins, bold alcohol, velvet texture, and body. Ripe flavors of black bramble fruits dominate thanks to the dominance of carignan and syrah. Mourvèdre provides dried herb, spice, and earth, rounded by grenache’s plum. The length is medium plus.
Maybe because it is Fall in Paris. Maybe because of our lentil soup. Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation due to next door’s bar. But CO HO LA Corbières is very good wine (4 of 5). Harvest happened by hand, with organic farming, and biodynamic pruning by moonlight. Amazingly at $10, it feels like a French Art Student project: challenging, aesthetic, if a bit blunt:
Hanging over.
The next day, we hit Paris’ streets. George Larnicol Chocolate chain knows what Americanized season it is:
Even in Paris
We spend a free day at the Louvre, casually wandering through this labyrinth of art.
‘Tis the Seasons
We had visited it a few times before. Yet still, room after room of decontextualized masterworks exhaust us.
By day’s end, we see past the famed pieces, sit, look up, and admire the centuries of didactic interior design.
“Wallpaper”
Spent, we leave as quickly as possibly through the Louvre’s mall of underground shops. Tragic materialism.
We eat at every patisserie, boulangerie, and fromagerie we pass, and lounge in Luxembourg gardens:
Fall design.
Finally, with our next stay booked in Tours, we preview our trip to the Loire the best way we know how: with wine.
Jacky Blot’s, Brut Tradition, from Taille aux Loups in Montlour Sur Loire:
Hello friend.
Now Wayward Wine has sampled Blot’s Triple Zero before (here). But we could not resist his cheaper Brut ($14) also made from chenin blanc.
A clear, bright gold color and super fine, steady fizz bode well. Moderate aromas of golden pear and apple, with lovely soft biscuits, and vanilla smell delightful. Off-dry sweetness adds roundness and ripeness, which is a good thing, because popping acidity would cut us to bits. Full-ish flavors of ripe green grapes, lemonade, and slate mineral refresh. Good fruit provides a medium plus length. Blot’s Brut Tradition is very good (4 of 5).
With the bubbly drained, we say goodby to Paris.
A rare, quiet day.
It was an over-packed week. We look forward to swapping museums for vineyards in the Loire Valley. Check in next Monday for 2012’s harvest.
You’re down the rabbit hole. You bought Halloween candy. You chose ones that kids want: Hersheys, Mars, Butterfinger, etc. You know they are little bags of chemical warfare. But serving carrot sticks will get your house egged.
Readied, you sit there: like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin:
He could use a drink.
Between rushes of costumed, underage beggars, you do it. You eat one.
Unpronounceable petrochemicals assail your palate. Endless variations of corn sugars leave no turning back. You can’t drink wine now. That sweetness will render any wine brutal and dry.
But how to fend off the boredom? What wine could please your ruined tongue?
Wayward Wine is here to save you. We will crash and burn our way through candy and wine pairings to find if anything works.
Let’s start with genesis: the first OOPS! A 2008 Amarone from Luigi Righetti:
Alone, this Amarone is pretty good (4 of 5) for $40, flaunting aromas and flavors of violets, clove, chocolate, burnt lavender, and dried cherry. The palate feels dry, with mouthwatering acids, burnt tannins, ample alcohol (14.5), medium body, and loads of length.
Sounds like a lovely thing for Halloween night. Right?
Wrong! Against the gummy worm, my wife cringes, “Oh god it’s so painfully dry, the palate is killing me. It ruins the length. Tastes like dried grass.” While I note that, “the worm tastes like dental toothpaste and junk bubble gum. The wine is no more than rubber and acid, very woody, bark, ash”.
But worst of all is the 3 Musketeers. All that remains is the smell of alcohol, acrid tannins, and awful. It tastes like leaves glazed in corn syrup. Clearly, nothing real survives in a 3 Musketeers.
The only viable candy is the Kitkat. The Amarone still seems jagged, closed, and tight with it. Sugar and artificial flavors frame our mouths. But, in the center, hides something like a nice red, with length, body, and some fruit, but barely.
This $11 value of a sweetie comes from Bordeaux in South Western France. It is all apricot, honeycomb, and rose water, like Indian Gulab Jamun. It just lacks acidity to make it more than good (3 of 5 points).
But can it stand up to our candy?
The Gummi worm disappears immediately. The Reese’s becomes a saltine cracker. The Snickers tastes cringeworthy yet dead. The KitKat makes it taste like bland Concord grape juice.
But true failure lays with the Licorice Bean. It tastes like eating an entire bicycle wheel: rubber, tire, dirt, roadkill, and all.
MONBAZILLAC VERDICT: Strangely, the 3 Musketeers resurrects itself. The wine’s fruit, acid, and body hold. Somehow they put up with each other.
It’s like Tim Curry, but 11 years after his epic Rocky Horror Picture Show: somehow, he could still make glam out of junk:
But it’s still junk.
Now for that stalwart dessert of drunken Victorians: Port:
W & J Graham’s, Six Grapes, Reserve is nice entry-level ruby. It looks inky purple. Free of fructos, it smells of black olive and hot blackberry jam. It lacks acid, has decent tannins and viscous alcohol, and tastes like blackberry jam on gingerly burnt toast, with extra length. A solid good (3 of 5) for $13 a 375ml. But then:
The Reese’s makes the Port smell of pot, murderous wood, and dank hippy. The Snickers turns it into fake vanillin syrup and burnt herbs. Somehow, the Port “makes the Musketeers better” even if all we taste is fake sugar. But king of crap is the KitKat. The Portuguese smells of twigs and rubbing alcohol. Like putting Vaseline in, not on me.
PORT VERDICT: Victory, for the first time, goes to the Licorice. The wine’s acid glows, it smells of vanilla, and tastes like chocolate, but still tastes kinda horrid.
By now, this game wears on us. But maybe, just maybe, Cockburn’s (“Coh-burns”) longer-aged Fine Tawney Port might save us from this candy conundrum. In a vacuum, the Cockburn’s smells and tastes of smores (especially graham crackers), chocolate raspberry, and salty caramel. Acids hit high, tannins mellow, alcohol is omnipresent. It looks pink. A spicy, long, good (3 of 5) for $12 for a 750ml. Fruit flies love it.
But, Gummy Worms render it into burnt newspaper. Licorice Beans make it smell like coffee and poo. Reese’s turn it into “steel-painted awfulness”. Snicker’s spawn a festering mold of dried fruit leather and herbs. Eating a 3 Musketeers with it is akin to licking cinnamon bark. Somehow, the KitKat smells like apple cider, imitation baking vanillin.
COCKBURN VERDICT: By now, we’re dead. We leave and walk to the grocery store.
Upon return, we decide to give America a chance:
Yes, it’s Red Moscato. Yes, it has more apostrophes (Rose’n’blum’) than any other wine. But maybe, just maybe, cheap American candy will meld with cheap ($12) American wine. Any terroirist worth their salt would try.
Isolated, Rose’n’blum’ smells and tastes of peach-flavored cotton candy. Sugar cloys at our palates, but ok acid saves it from poor quality (acceptable: 2 of 5 points).
Gummy Worms and wine both taste equally fake: null point. Licorice Beans mutate it into a light, canned, orange syrup. Reese’s turn it into tart Lemonheads. The “wine’s” acid cleans our palates of all the peanut junk from the Snicker’s.
RED MOSCATO VERDICT: Somewhere, from the depths of hell, the 3 Musketeer’s turns the Red Moscato into a delicate array of blueberry and tart red fruit. Even the KitKat creates a peachy-keen nose. But the wine is still trash.
FINAL VERDICT:
There are no winners, only losers here. Don’t pair Halloween candy with wine. Take a break. Drink water. Eat some cheese.
Once you stop tasting poison, switch completely over to the Monbazzilac, Port, or Tawny. They are great value entries into the world of sweetness, darkness, and getting through Halloween.
WAYWARD WINE 