Enough Screwing Around

Picture for me, that you’ve just gotten home from a rough day of work. Deadlines are creeping up, your boss is on your back about making your quotas for the month and all you really want is a really great drink. So, you curl up on the couch with your favorite feel good movie, maybe something with Johnny Depp, and decide to open up a great bottle of cabernet, let’s say the ’04 Andrew Geoffrey (which retails at $79.00). You uncork the bottle, pour yourself a generous glass and settle in. You take a moment to revel in the fact that your day has finally come to a close before you finally take that first delicious sip. But instead of the dried raisins and cocoa you expected to have coating your palate you get a mouthful of wine resembling the taste of mold and cardboard. It’s corked! There goes your pick me up.

We’ve all had those moments when the wine we’re expecting to enjoy has been first visited by that nasty little chemical 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA) and turned foul! So, it’s a wonder that while screw caps, also known as “stelvin enclosures”, are becoming a convenient alternative that so many people are still resisting! Why not take advantage of the opportunity to avoid such an awful experience? Perhaps, because while a screw cap does keep wine from contamination more effectively it also prevents any oxygen from getting in, causing a phenomenon called “reduction,” which can give the wine a sulfur-like smell. In some cases, experts say, this can be reversed by simple decanting.

But it’s more than just the reduction that’s stopping us. Deep down we’re all still a bit attached to the cork. There’s a romanticism about it. Screw caps are associated with cheap, poor quality products like Mad Dog 22 and King Cobra, not a nice bottle of cabernet! Who can really imagine wine without a cork?! But ready or not, some wineries are leaning heavily in that direction. Nearly all of Australia and New Zealand (where the revolution began) have already adapted to it, as well as a few notable wineries in the United States. The Hentley Farm Zinfandel, for example, full of dark, port-like and almost savory fruit is closed off with a screw cap. Even Maison Jean-Claude, a Grand Cru vineyard in Chambertin, Burgundy which sells for more than $200 a bottle, rolled out half its ’05 vintage with screw caps! It’s not just Boone’s Farm anymore.

If you ask me, it’s about time to just suck it up and go with the flow. The flow of wine, that is. A screw cap does not necessarily indicate cheap wine anymore. So, savor the cork while you still can and don’t let that little stelvin enclosure scare you so much!

Great Screw Caps to try:

-Dr. L Riesling from Dr. Loosen ($12-15)
-Gemtree Citrine Chardonnay ($18-22)
-Omaka Springs Sauvignon Blanc ($10-15)
-Cirillo 1850 Old Vine Grenache ($65-70)
-Red Head Studio’s Barrel Monkey Shiraz ($20-25)

Hello (and Chardonnay)

About a year ago I began working and writing for The Wine Merchant of Raleigh. I was thrilled to have the chance to combine both my love of words and my, at times unhealthy obsession with wine. It wasn't a huge deal. A few times a month I'd write a page or so on something I thought the public would appreciate. A wine lesson and some careful suggestions, with careful bits of rantings hidden here and there between sentences. And people read it. Occasionally. From time to time. I'd get a response every now and again, but I slowly began to realize that it was of little importance to anyone. I backed off, wrote less frequently and figured there were plenty of people in the triangle to pick up where I left off.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. Not only were there little to no wine writers in this lovely little triangle of ours, but the few that were out there were hidden in obscure places and rarely read. There was nothing out there really pushing forward, promoting the small businesses in the wine business here and trying to throw out some educational tid bits to the masses. So, it's time to expand, to push my way into the dreadful blog-o-sphere in an attempt to make wine more available, understandable and more easily consumable to the triangle area and beyond. So grab a glass and hold on!

Today's lesson: Chardonnay.
I remember my first chardonnay, very clearly. What a momentous experience! Not only was it my first chardonnay, it was my very first wine. I was rather cleverly staying with my boyfriend of the time for the weekend at UNC without my parents' permission. He thought it would be romantic to have a bottle of wine waiting when I got there. At 18 years old the bottle of Yellow Tail chardonnay looked sophisticated and very adult to me. I put my snob face on and let him pour me a glass. Oh how grown up I thought I was....That is, until I tasted it. I spat it right back in to the cup and between gags screamed "if I wanted to lick a tree I'd go outside and do it!" Needless to say I didn't touch chardonnay for quite a while after that.

I became of age and gained a more "sophisticated" taste in wine. Red. Mostly Italians, particularly Chianti. "No, not just regular Chianti! Chianti Classico!" (As if I knew what that meant). I'd drink a white every so often, usually white Bordeaux. It sounded important. But I never really could bring myself to touch a chardonnay. That is, until this lovely little bottle of Lamblin Petit Chablis snuck up on me by surprise.

I was working at Bistro 607 under the discerning eyes of Henry Burgess and Heather Friend, a self made wine efficianato and wonder woman respectively. Henry had noticed my enthusiasm to learn about wine and was kind enough to start pointing me in the right direction with books, tastings and the like. I had read about white Burgundies. I knew they were made from chardonnay and I knew that I needed to know what a white Burgundy tasted like, despite my squimishness. But it took Miss Friend pouring me a glass of Lamblin Petit Chablis after work one night to really make it happen. Talk about an epiphany! I was in heaven! One sip of that smooth and delicious wine, with little hints of minerals and this creamy feeling in the back of my mouth and my mind was changed forever. I started trying all kinds of chardonnays. South African, French, American, oaked, un-oaked, South American, Australian, the whole nine yards! And do you know what I found out? Chardonnay is a really versatile grape.

Chardonnay, like most any varietal, cannot be put into just one category. It has a wealth of potential! You can have big oakey chardonnays that are so buttery that you couldn't imagine drinking without bread or hell, a lobster (Chalone, $20). You can find delicate chardonnay's with just a touch of oak and oddly tropical fruit (Santa Barbara, $15). There's white Burgundy (of course) which is smooth, minerally (think slate) and only the slighest bit oakey (Greffiere Macon, $18). And Italian chardonnay? That's a completely different story, acidic to the point that you almost think it's fizzy and an odd hint of banana flavored Now and Laters. Some even have hints of citrus. To top it all off, California's new things these days is the un-oaked chardonnay. Yes, people, California chardonnay that sees no oak. More and more you'll run across Chardonnays from California that were aged in, *gasp*, stainless steel barrels! Talk about really tasting the true fruit character! It's chardonnay the way America has never had it before. My current favorite is the Alondra, which you can find for around $17.

Now, I know I said the lesson this week was chardonnay, but it's more than that. It's about not getting stuck on one perception of a type of wine. The world of wine is huge. Every winemaker has a different idea of how to do it right. So, don't close yourself off. Be adventerous. Next time you're offered a glass of chardonnay (or any type you don't usually enjoy) taste it anyway! Educate yourself! Limiting yourself will inevitably limit your ultimate enjoyment. Don't do that to yourself. It's just not fair.

Chardonnay's to try:
-really really oakey, classic California: Sonoma Cutrer or Solex
-mild oak and good fruit character: Annabella or Santa Barbara (the winery, not the region)
-un-oaked: Hentley Farm Mallee Sands Chardonnay or Cono Sur "Vision"
-something altogether different: Springfield Estates (from South Africa!)
-Italian: Due Mondi
-Burgundy: J.J. Vincent Pouilly Fuisse Marie Antoinette

Comments, suggestion, gripes, ideas or rants are always welcome. Lauren@TWMWine.com