CARLTON CRUSH: WINE HARVEST FESTIVAL

Posted on September 19, 2013 by waywardwine

With Summer burning records (and ripening grapes) throughout the North West, we drive to 2013’s grape harvest festival of Yamhill-Carlton AVA: The Carlton Crush.

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Brown, dry, rolling hills…California?

The endless auburn fields and early harvests remind of California or Tuscany, not the great, green Northwest.

Quaint Carlton’s mill looms iconic above Main street’s shops.

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Monumental Milling.

However, a brisk walk reveals that every shop, every factory, every barn, every gas station has converted into a winery tasting room or cellar.

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Fancy $1,000 French barrels fill space that pigs once milled about.

Honestly, it’s too hot to appreciate $5 wine sampler trays.  So we find the Carlton Crush Harvest Fair.

Tents with face-painting and painted canvases frame the parking lot.  Sure a secluded, fenced green serves wine, and Carlton Cellars pours pleasantly free samples, but sober parents, kids, and shaved ice dominate.

We stumble upon the Wine Thief Relay.  The MC announces the semi-final contestants, who brace with their tubes above barrels.

They jam them into the water-filled barrels, and then off they run.

Truly a test of only the finest winemakers.  The older team surprisingly beat the younger.

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Exciting filling of water.

Next, the festival’s namesake: The Carlton Crush.

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Yum?

Hornets swarm four open barrels full of this year’s (mostly disposable) harvest:

Barefeet of all ages and genders ready themselves.  In teams of four, one stomps against the clock.  Another desperately jabs to unclog the pipe.  While the other two panic.  Then they switch.

We back away from the green splatter of grape and sweat.

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Crushing defeat.

Wiped down.  Winners and losers chosen (well done team Crazy Feet and your athletic ladies).  We then wander back to the main drag to kill time before the day’s last loosely wine-related event: the barrel roll:

Youth trounces experience.

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Nice technique!

With suntan lotion fading against brutal rays, and the kid’s watermelon eating context straying from the theme, we head home.

The Carlton Crush is enjoyably ridiculous.  Watching this wine-olympics, we got too caught up in the locals fighting it out, to want a drink.

Carlton has clearly sold its soul to Bacchus.  This town’s fixation on wine worries me a bit (coming from the blackest kettle).  Yet it has so much local pride and so few tourists today.  Let them have their cake of grape skins and eat it too.

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ENTRÉE PARIS 1: Mondeuse, Jean Perrier Et Fils Cuvée Prestige, Savoie, France 2011: EU Austerity Drinking Tour #40

Posted on September 16, 2013 by waywardwine

74 days deep into our EU Austerity Drinking Tour, we leave Cork, Ireland for Paris, France.  Au revoir beer and whisk(e)y.  Bonjour France: glorious crucible of wine: where most grape varieties and wine styles took root.

NewYorkToParisDay74

Only just began.

An airport bus takes us from Cork at 9:50 am.  Landed at Charles de Gaule airport, we starve our way to our home-stay near Place des Fêtes in the 19th Arrondissement.  By 4:30, we find a late lunch at the first boulangerie we see.

We get lost amidst the 70s high-rises.  Then we find our homestay, get keys from neighbors, and finally squeeze into an apartment bursting with souvenirs: hats from Cuba, dolls from Thailand, African masks.  No inch survives undecorated.  The only thing missing is our host.

Well, the human host anyway.

TracyKnitCatParis

Yarn equals toy.

After purging cat hair from everything for two-hours, we return to the square for dinner-staples, boulangerie dessert, and our first wine in Paris:

Jean Perrier Et Fils, Cuvée Prestige, Mondeuse, ‏Savoie, France 2011.

JeanPerrierEtFils2011Monduese

Grapes in our window: appropriate.

I trust the geek in me and go for something weird: wine made from the Mondeuse grape: a rare thing, nearly wiped from the planet by phyloxera, but now mainly grown in the Savoy region of Eastern France.

This being an Austerity EU Drinking Tour, it costs under $14.

APPEARANCE:

The color is a deep ruby purple that runs straight to the rim.

AROMAS:

Young, moderately intense blackberry, rhubarb, and green leaves float up.

PALATE:

It assertively dry, with medium plus acid and medium plus tannins.  There may be reason to why the French call it Maldoux or ‘badly sweet”.  Alcohol and body are average.

FLAVORS:

Moderate flavors of tart blackberries, brambles, wet chalk, salt, and green leaves make for an odd, not wholly pleasant, experience.  These challenging flavors last for a medium plus length.

CONCLUSIONS:

Jean Perrier’s Mondeuse tastes very tart, wispy, and jangly: a stubbly, lean punk, with an anarchist shirt and a black hoody.  Only our baguette and cheese dinner can save this recalcitrant youth.  It needs food to tame all that acid and tannin.  Maybe now, in 2013, it might have matured, gotten a shave, and a job (it was only a year old from its 2011 harvest when we tried it).

Then my wife breaks a ceramic cat plaque from South America.  Granted, the countless souvenirs in this apartment balance, hang, or lean on every precarious edge.  But this bodes poorly.

Tomorrow, she turns 31.  And I’ve booked a day at Versailles.  Tune in next Monday to find out.

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Marcato, “iPrandi” Brut, Lessini Durello DOC, Italy NV $10-14.5

Posted on September 12, 2013 by waywardwine

imageThink of Italian bubbly and we probably think of Prosecco, maybe Moscato or Lambrusco.

However, hidden in North Eastern Italy, smack dab between Venice and Verona, lay the Lessini hills.  Here an ancient grape called Durello thrives.  The name may come from its thick skins, or high acid.  It may be native.  Either way, it loves the volcanic soil. basalt.  Elevations are high.  Thus Lessini Durello has its own DOC.

Azienda Marcato makes many wines there.  But one ended up in a discount bin for $10.  It is part of their iPrandi range of young, approachable wines: of questionable marketing relation to the iPod.

This Brut consists of 85% Durello, 10% Chardonnay and 5% Pinot Nero.  Its fizz comes from the charmant (tank) method: used for Prosecco and other (read cheaper) bubbly, because, well, fermenting in each bottle like Champagne costs money, time, and labor.  It sees complete malolactic fermentation.  However, Marcato has the patience to age the wine on its lees (sediment) for eight months, which adds richness and complexity.

APPEARANCE:

Durello’s thick skins provide a moderate golden sheen that shimmers evenly to the edge of the rim.  The fizz is small, typical of lower CO2 charmant method, but lasts a decent amount of time.

AROMAS:

Average levels of honey, almond flowers, chamomile, and a hint of black mineral (thank you lees!).

PALATE:

Although Brut, the 9 grams of sugar per liter help balance the stark, zippy acid.  Alcohol is a moderate 12%.  The body is there.

FLAVORS:

Light mild lemonade, chamomile, biscuits or mild sourdough fill out the center, with a flint-like mineral tweak.  Young, not completely ripe strawberries (probably the Pinot Nero) jump out at the medium length finish.

CONCLUSIONS:

Marcato iPrandi’s quality is good (3 of 5).  This is a pleasant fizz for most occasions that is complex enough and rare enough, yet equally crowd-pleasing to be well worth $10 to $15.  Drink young.

FYI: after two bottles, its composite natural cork is a beast to drag out.  Use champagne pliers, anger, a towel, or a cork screw.

L110908

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LINKS

Yes, Lessini Durello has it’s own consortium: Consorzio Tutela Vino Lessini Durello

Great review (if a bit bluntly titled) of a variety of Durello wines: Durello- A Grape from the Veneto that makes Great Sparkling Wines

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WEST KERRY BREWERY, PORTER, DINGLE PENINSULA, IRELAND EU 3.99: EU Austerity Drinking Tour #39

Posted on September 9, 2013 by waywardwine

Pints from the Franciscan Well Brewery warm our walk back to our homestay.

We stumble upon ruins of a distillery

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Once great spirit flowed from here.

We also visit a militant penitentiary:

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Impressive and hollow.

Soon evening shades the port of Cork, Ireland.  Punks chase each other.  Couples mouth each other in parks.  Restaurants turn into clubs.

Then Bradleys stops our tracks:

CorkBradleysWineShop

Yes.

It looks like a Quikie-Mart.  But we reach the back and find beer-topia.  We find every beer since our journey began two months ago.  Beers from New York, Connecticut, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Iceland, Scotland, North Ireland, and Ireland sell here.

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Celtic gibberish.

I can’t choose.  Then, a plain bottle emerges from the clown-car of colored labels.

WEST KERRY BREWERY’S PORTER:

Now we never made it to Kerry’s Dingle Peninsula.  Really, France calls us (and we couldn’t afford a rental car in Ireland).

With a night left in Ireland, and Kerry’s Dingle a mere two hours west, our stay in Cork is close enough.

Poured into a wine glass, this porter looks a gorgeous deep garnet with super fine, slow fizz, and a cream colored halo of foam.

Aromas echo through the room with dark cocoa, espresso, sea salt, and mint.  It is dry, with medium hits of acid, tannin, alcohol (only 5%), and body.

But then flavors reminiscent of red apple pie, black tea, and a lovely bitter, charred coffee trounce my mouth.  The length lasts forever carrying this creamy, super fruity, apply beer and me to the harsh, wind-swept west coast of Ireland.  West Kerry makes a very good (4 of 5 points) Porter.

WestKerryWow

Lovely garnet porter.

With that we pack our bags, pet Yuki one last time, and sleep.  We fly to the continent, to France, to wine and five more months of our EU Austerity Drinking Adventure.

CorkAirLingusTracy

Thank you Ireland. Bonjour Paris!

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Cruz de Alba, Tempranillo, Crianza, Ribera del Duero, Spain 2008

Posted on September 5, 2013 by waywardwine

IMG_20130905_211429APPEARANCE:

Inky purple, paper thin clear rim, noticeable legs.

AROMAS:

Bold aromas of candied violet, black berry jam on burnt toast, orange zest, equal parts French and American oak lend a cigar and coconut face off.

PALATE:

Dry and dusty, citric acidity, muscular tannins, and present alcohol lead to a medium body.

FLAVORS:

Intensely strong ripe and pruned cherries lead to a woody cedar yet orange peel finish. Medium plus length.

JUDGEMENT:

Can drink now will age for 5 more years.  Needs salty, savory dishes with some protein or Manchego cheese to calm the tannins.  Edgy stuff, very good quality (4 of 5).

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