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by Tom Hill
A
self-admitted wine geek, Tom lives in Northern New Mexico
and works as a computational physicist at Los Alamos National
Laboratory doing numerical neutron transport & large scale
code development. He has been tasting wines since 1971, participates
locally with a couple of large tasting groups in his area,
and is practically a fixture at most California wine festivals,
such as the Hospice du Rhône, Rhône Rangers, and
ZAP. Other interests: Tom is heavily into competitive sport
fencing (foil & epee), biking, cooking, basketball, skiing,
backpacking, mountain climbing.
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Rhone Rangers Seminar -
March 27, 2011 |
Rhone Rangers - WildWines Seminar
The Sunday morning Seminar afore the GrandTasting was titled: "Wild Wines and the Stories of How They Came To Be". I thought originally this was to be a seminar focusing on "natural" wines, or wines lower in alcohol, the so-called "wines of balance" movement. After the seminar, I still have no idea what constitutes a "wild wine". In fact, some of the winemakers acknowlledged being totally perplexed as to why they were selected. The panelists were: PeterStolpman/ StolpmanVnyds, GideonBinstock/ClosSaron, TerryHoage, CarlBowker/CalizaWnry, JordanHarris/ TararaWnry, BradBrown/BigBasinVnyds, JustinKahler/Katin, and PaxMahle/WindGap. The panel was very ably moderated by Patrick Comiskey, who has a new book coming out in a yr or so detailing the US Rhone movement. Patrick is one of my favorite wine writers and it should be a fascinating read. I'm hoping he will write an article based on the seminar and clue me in to what a "wild wine" exactly is. Apparently, the winemakers submitted their candidate wines for the seminar and they were then selected by some unknown/unseen/mysterious group of judges. It's all very mystifing to me.
The wines:
- StolpmanVnyds Roussanne l'Avion SantaYnezVlly 2008: Lovely perfumed/floral/honeysuckle/spicy /nutmeg very fragrant nose; soft very strong floral/honeyed/honeysuckle/peachy very lush fairly ripe flavor w/ very light oak; quite long lush very strong floral/honeysuckle/honeyed/spicy finish; good ripeness but not pushed over-the-top; maybe the best l'Avion yet; probably for the short term; bit pricey at $38.00
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- ClosSaron Calif Cinsault "Out of the Blue" 2010: Light color; rather earthy/dusty slight mushroomy somewhat funky/unclean nose w/ very little fruit; tart rather earthy/dusty slight fecal/unclean/funky slight raspberry almost Zin like rather lean/thin flavor; med.short earthy/dusty/raspberry some uncllean/funky finish w/ light tannins; a bit too unclean/funky, a bit too "natural" for my tastes. $25.00
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- TerryHoageVnyds Cuvee des Ecoulage 2009: Very dark/black color; rather strong pencilly/toasty/oak some jammy/blackberry/boysenberry/Syrah fairly intense nose; soft strong/toasty/charred/oak ripe/jammy/blackberry/boysenberry/Syrah flavor w/ ample tannins; long strong/toasty/charred/oak intense blackberry/boysenberry/finish w/ ample tannins; pretty classic intense WestSide Paso Syrah; sort of a johnny-one-note.
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- CalizaWnry "Cohort" Red Blend 2008: Very dark color; very ripe/jammy/blackberry/Paso/Syrah some toasty/oak slight alcoholic/hot nose; fairly tart lush/blackberry/jammy/ripe/blackberry/Syrah slight framboise fairly toasty/oak flavor w/ some tannins; med.long tart very ripe/blackberry/boysenberry/ jammy/PasoSyrah finish; somewhat on the ripe side but pretty good Paso Syrah; not as structured/ tannic as the Hoage. $35.00
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- TararaWnry Syrah Estate/Virginia (6% Viognier) 2008: Med.dark color; rather earthy/mushroomy fairly pencilly/oak very light blackberry/Syrah almost hybridy/earthy/plastic slight peppery pretty unusual Syrah nose; slightly tart earthy/gout de terroir slight herbal/peppery rather tannic/lean/hard very slight blackberry/Syrah strange flavor; med.short somewhat earthy/peppery some pencilly/oak slight blackberry/Syrah fairly tannic finish; speaks little of Syrah but kinda interesting; some like a hybrid w/ a lot of earthy character; seems OK acidity but it has a mushiness character on the palate that speaks of a high pH wine; not as good as the early DennisHorton Syrahs; very aggressively priced at $50.00
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- BigBasinVnyds Syrah RattlesnakeRockVnyd/SantaCruzMtns 2007: Very dark color; very strong blackberry/Syrah/spicy fair amount of toasty/oak dusty/earthy/classic SCM nose; fairly tart lush/powerful/blackberry/Syrah/peppery some earthy/dusty/pungent some toasty/oak rather tannic/structured flavor; very long rather tannic tart strong blackberry/spicy/Syrah some toasty/oak somewhat earthy/dusty finish; needs 3-8 yrs of age; has a bit of a rough/earthy character you get in a Clape Cornas w/o the roasted character; clearly Syrah but shows that SCM earthiness. $55.00
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- Katin RedBlend (90% Syrah/10% Viognier) 2007: Med.dark color; some mineral/pungent/ozone slight Rhonish/smokey light blackberry/Syrah fairly complex nose; rather tart some pungent/mocha/ coffee/Rhonish slight floral/violets rather blackberry/Syrah flavor w/ modest tannins; med.long some pungent/ozone/Rhonish/mocha light floral/violets some blackberry/Syrah finish w/ modest tannins; quite atypical for Paso Syrah in that it doesn't have that jammy/ripe character and some modest Rhonish/ pungent character; ambitiously priced at $65.00
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- Agharta Syrah NorthCoast 2005: Med.dark color; beautiful very Rhonish/smokey/peppery/roasted some floral/blackberry/Syrah very roasted/complex nose; very tart very roasted/Rhonish/pungent/ smokey some blackberry/violets/perfumed flavor w/ modest tannins; med.long strong roasted/pungent/ smokey/peppery/Rhonish light floral/blackberry/Syrah finish w/ modest tannins; an elegant/polished very Rhonish Syrah whose balance should take it out another ten yrs; ambitiously priced at $100.
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1. Stolpman: This was easily the best Stolpman Roussanne that I've yet had. Peter posited that this wine had been selected for "wild" because, as the grapes were pushing toward final ripeness, they went thru the vnyd every day and twisted the bunches 180 degrees towards the sun to ensure even ripeness. Not excatly clear to me how this was done...I wouldn't think the bunches would stay twisted, or they'd break off if the stems were lignified. And that they did you some skin contact in the fermentation.
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2. ClosSaron: This wnry is located in OregonHouse, CA; out in the middle of nowhere, in the SierraFoothills North of Sacramento and YubaCity. One claim to "wild" I guess. For this wine, the vnyds up there were subjected to a lot of rot & mildew last year. His Syrah vnyd was pretty badly hit. He found this vnyd of Cinsault that was in fairly good shape (own rooted/very old vines down in Lodi), so bought those grapes to be the foundation of this blend. He then took the mildew-infested Syrah grapes and then sprayed them w/ water, twice it took, to wash off the mildew.
Which is why he suspected this wine was selected as "wild". Since Gideon is a strong proponent of making "natural" wines, I asked him directly (in my finest pot-stirring manner) if such a procedure of washing the grapes wasn't an interventionist technique in direct violation of the tennents of "natural" winemaking? He gave this sheepish grin, shrugged his shoulders, and replied that he did what he had to do to save the grapes. Good answer I thought..very non-dogmatic.
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3. Some 6-8 months ago, several articles appeared, one by Patrick, another later by EricAsimov, lamenting the poor sales of Syrah in the marketplace these days. They both asserted that part of the problem was the great diversity of styles in Syrah being made and this led to confusion by consumers about what style of Syrah they were getting, so their frustration & confusion led them to quit buying Syrah. I'm not sure I buy into that one. However..
So...during the pouring break.. I pointedly asked Patrick the question: "A well-known wine writer several months ago opined in print that the sluggish sales of Syrah was due to the great diversity in styles creating confusion in the minds of consumers what Syrah really is. Doesn't it seem counter-intuitive, as Randall would say, to have a seminar at RhoneRangers promoting a diversity in Syrah styles when it was alleged that this very diversity was what was impacting the sales of Syrah??" I'm not quite sure that Patrick picked up that I was stirring-the-pot again and it was referring to his article months before. Though he didn't refute the point made in his article, he skillfully finessed it by say that the diversity of the wines in this seminar was what makes Syrah so interesting to him as a varietal. Following up on that, both BradBrown and PaxMahle asserted that they felt that the adaptability of Syrah to a variety of growing conditions and the diversity in styles in which Syrah is currently being made is the big strenghth of Syrah, over other varieties like Cabernet. To that, I would agree.
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4. TerryHoage: This barrel sample is a puzzling effort and not quite sure what the point of the wine is. It is supposedly the "best of the best". It is a hodge-podge blend of (supposedly) the best wine of the best winemakers on WestSide Paso. It contains much Rhone varietals, plus Zin/Cabernet/PinotNoir and maybe a few other things from the likes of Hoage/Saxum/WestWind/ etc. A mind-boggling kitchen-sink blend. That said, I thought it was a pretty good WestSide Rhone-style red.
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5. BigBasin: I suppose Brad's claim to "wild" is that his Syrah is from the SantaCruzMtns; not an area well known for Syrah. There should be much more planted up there (you listening, DaveGates??). He described the early purchase of the property, mostly for mountain biking, and discovering this old/abandoned/overgrown vnyd/100 yr old up there. It would be interesting to know what those old varieties were. I believe Brad said that they had propagated some of them. I've always been impressed by his RattlesnakeRock Syrahs. Distinctly Syrah, but that somewhat earthy character you get out of SantaCruzMtn reds.
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6. Agharta: This was to me the best wine of the seminar because of its strong Rhonish character. It's on the pricey side and I thought Pax's '08 SonomaCoast Syrah was nearly its equal at a third the price.
TomHill
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Updated 4.11.11
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