|
|
You know how when you want a Coke, a Pepsi won’t do? Because when you want a Coke, you want a Coke. There’s a reason for that–brand, taste, that secret formula, whatever. You may not care to identify it, but you are looking for a specific product and specific taste, and nothing will be like the Real Thing.
In the wine world, there’s nothing quite like a Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Unlike, say, Pinot Noirs, which all try to some extent emulate Burgundy, Napa Cabernet is the absolute monarch that has claimed its paradise land and that bows to no one. That land and that grape are soul mates forever. No Bordeaux, no imitation will taste like it. That power, that backbone, that finesse , that fruit from sun-drenched berries…
It remains one of my favorite wine experiences. But just like with Coke, when I want a Napa Cabernet, I want a Napa Cabernet. Not a Bordeaux blend many of them seem to have become.
 Only 87% Cabernet... In California, to be labeled “Cabernet Sauvignon”, i.e. a specific grape variety, by law, only 75% of the grapes must be that variety. So when you pick up a bottle, it can have 25% of other grapes blended in and still call itself “Cabernet Sauvignon”. It may or may not tell you that on the back of the label what the blend is. Oftentimes, you can go to the winery’s website and look up tasting notes to find out. This is not secret information.
But it is, sometimes, annoying. Because when I take a sip, I’ll know that it lacks that Napa-Cabernet-ness I love so much, that flavor that got me into wine in the first place. I’ll know something else must be mixed in, and it doesn’t matter whether or not they told me, because I’ve already opened a bottle. (Like the Silverado Vineyards 2005 Cabernet I opened last night.) Usually, what is mixed in is a mellowing agent, like Merlot or Malbec, to achieve a certain (softer) flavor profile the winemaker wants. And perhaps it’s for good commercial reason–the consumers want that flavor profile, and it sells. But it also, lately, creates wimpy wines that lack the blending finesse of Bordeaux, and lack the power of pure Napa Cabernet. These wines don’t taste distinctive any more–at least the reasonably inexpensive ones.
So what’s a consumer to do if she wants a 100% Napa Cabernet? Ask, look it up, and learn. Don’t just look at the label. The label may not be technically deceiving, but it’s allowed by law to disclose only minimal required information.
Do I want to change the law? No. Do I think some stipulation has to be in place to require winemakers to disclose exactly how much of the specific grape variety is in the bottle? No. If I don’t like how a wine tastes to me, or can’t find detailed information on it, I can simply choose to stop buying it. End of story. But am I a little sad over the softening of Napa Cabernets to suit the mainstream taste of mellower, more balanced wines? Yes.
But that is my opinion, and I don’t rule the wine world.
I just want me one glass of that pure Napa fruit.
Fads come and go. Nutrition evolves. Yet one biological trait remains constant—as humans, we are hard-wired to consume the same food in the same quantities as our ancestors did thousands of years back. No amount of modern food science and has been able to change this simple fact of human evolution.
Including eating meat.
More is not Always Better
The wild game of hunter-gatherer days, when it was lean and eaten sparsely, had been all but forgotten. Fourth of July hot dogs, super burgers, and Texas-style barbeque are some of the most well-known American paraphernalia that are woven into our culture like thirteen stars in the American flag. Thanks to industrial food production of the last 50 years, the source of cheap, fatty meat is more affordable than ever. And most hazardous on our heart.
As carnivores, we should stop and think about why this happens—why, if early humans benefited from it so much, is red meat deemed so unhealthy?
For one thing, it’s portion control. We didn’t super-size it, and we didn’t get fries with that in those early days. But it’s not the only culprit.
The main reason for making meat a nutritional enemy is the over-production of corn.
From Corn…
Cows are supposed to roam around and eat grass. Dried hay, perhaps, in wintertime. Most conventionally raised cows today are instead fed a daily diet of corn—a meal they are not supposed to be able to digest. And don’t. They do not have the stomach, literally and figuratively, to process such grain-heavy dinners. Welcome, antibiotics.
The whole industrial food chain has been widely publicized and documented in works such as Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and, more recently, an expose film Food, Inc. These are worth educating oneself on the topic.
…to Grass
 Cow on Charlton Farms in Central Mass, 100% grass-fed At a typical family farm, however, cows do still eat their preferred sustenance—grass. They are not force-fed grain to reach slaughter weight sooner than necessary. And usually, they are treated humanely all the way through, as they should.
When we eat animal protein, what matters more in not salmon vs. veal, but what the animal in question has been consuming. As Michael Pollan writes:
“If the steer is fattened on grass and the salmon on grain, we might actually be better off eating the beef. Grass-finished beef has a two-to-one ratio of omega-6 to -3 compared to more than ten-to-one of corn-fed beef. The species of animal you eat may matter less than what the animal you’re eating has eaten itself.”
Value
It’s not a cheap way to find your next healthy steak. Nor is it supposed to be. Less is more in this case. You can find grass-fed beef in farmers’ markets, through CSA (community-supported-agriculture) deliveries throughout the state, and occasionally at Whole Foods.
If an animal gives up its life to end up on your plate, the best you can do is acknowledge where it comes from, cook it to the best of your ability, enjoy it when it’s genuine, and thus pay homage to your biological roots.
If you are Costco customer, you’ll know what I mean when I say “wow” to their prices. Every time I shop there, it never ceases to amaze me. I mean, I get the volume thing, but still. Wow, how can they make this (insert item in question) so cheap? And so good? I’m not talking about hunting for cheap to cheap Dollar-store stuff, either. What I have in mind is wild crab legs, and prime beef, and Madagascar vanilla extract, and sea salt.
And wines, of course.
In our fair state of Massachusetts, who can sell wine where is relevant. It’s more like who can’t sell wine when they should be able to, but that’s another post. Long story short, Costco in Waltham, MA is one of the few in the state that do sell alcohol.
They don’t have the widest selection, nor the most popular labels. But for what they do have, you can’t beat their prices. You just can’t, or you’ll go out of business. Again, that volume thing…
This weekend at Costco, I found one of the best deals for the budget-sensitive like yours truly. Since I’ve been on the pinot kick, exploring the whole cluster fermentation thing, my eye scanned for pinot noirs on the shelf. Zeroed in on one. Unfamiliar label, but my type of price–$13.79 for an Oregon pinot called Primarius. Vintage 2007. Bought it, tried it. Loved it!
The thing is, Oregon pinots–hell, any good pinots–are not cheap. But Oregon’s especially. The grape is hard to grow, hard to get right, hard to tinker with. To try a decent pinot noir, you’d need to shell out at least $20. Thank you, Costco.
I’ve come to expect quality for dollars spent in Costco wines. They’ve been, consistently, plain outstanding for the price. This one proved no exception.
This baby was young and delicate, but not watery. Subtle and reserved, french-style. Classic alcohol level at 13.5%, not astronomical like many wines have today. Bright fruit. Characteristic cherries. All the right components, in other words. So cheers to Costco and cheers to Primarius for making this so affordable.
The Pacific side of our fair country has never been afraid to conquer new frontiers. Or re-invent classic techniques for the fun of it–especially with wine.
The essence of wimenaking is fermentation. It is a simple process which involves two components – sugar and yeast. The yeast have a sweet tooth–they eat the sugar in the grapes and secrete alcohol. And release heat and carbon dioxide as by-products. Voila. Magic. This process is the same for making any wine.
The exciting thing is how some winemakers manipulate this process to achieve specific flavors. One such way is called whole cluster fermentation. This sounds much cooler and sexier than carbonic maceration, but as I learned recently (told you I’m not an expert), it means the same thing.
At harvest, grapes arrive at the winery in whole clusters, but don’t last long in au-naturel. Then they are usually de-stemmed and crushed prior to fermentation. The crushing is to release the juice. The de-stemming is more for insurance. When stems unripe or too abundant, they tend to infuse the wine with bitter tannins and give it a green, vegetal flavor. And no one really wants to drink liquid asparagus.
Sometimes though, depending on the ripeness of said stems, winemakers choose to include them in the process for complexity and flavor.
Enter whole cluster fermentation. It’s when grape clusters, stems and all, uncrushed and unbroken, are thrown into a closed fermentation container with oxygen replaced by carbon dioxide. All the juice remains intact inside each berry. The yeast marinate in this CO2 environment for a while (hence the geeky term carbonic maceration). Then the pressure of the gas forces them to penetrate through the skins and work their alcohol-making magic inside the grapes.
This method is supposed to make the resulting wines softer and showcase its fruit—not in the cheap mass-production way, but as a stylistic choice to make them lively and approachable. When done right, it works beautifully. When done wrong, you taste asparagus.
Although technically any grape can be fermented this way, when I looked into it, I noticed it most often practiced with young reds—specifically, pinot noirs in Oregon and California.
Oregon has been playing with this method for a couple of decades now, doing what they do best–experimenting, practicing, re-inventing. Whole cluster wines attract purists, hippies and connoisseurs alike.
It’s not some new-agey fad, either. The most famous practitioner of this technique, by the way, is Beaujolais in Burgundy—the guys that give us the much hyped Beaujolais Nouveau every November.
Case in point: 2008 Willamette Valley Vineyards Whole Cluster Fermented Pinot Noir (pictured). This is the culprit of this post. It piqued my curiosity about the whole cluster thing when I tried it yesterday.
Their own tasting notes (legit, winery website) describe it as “liquid fruit salad in a glass” with “explosive aromas” of pretty much any red berry you can name. I am a big fan of Oregon pinots because they tend to be less aggressive and more complex than Californian. So of course I wouldn’t pass on this. It was light on the texture, and did actually taste like the nice marketing people promised, although it was a bit too carbonated for a still wine. Perhaps it was the whole idea.
by Julia T.
I first tasted wine before I was a teenager. One night, my parents conceded to my curiosity and let me try a taste of what they were drinking. It was an ordinary red table wine. I hated it—the acidity, the pungent flavor, and the unfamiliar sensation of alcohol. It reminded me of medicine.
Then, some years after that first glass—and a few mediocre ones in between those formative years, my teenage self was dealt her cards for future hobby to become a passion. The dealer was a 1996 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon. The setting was a friend’s kitchen counter. The outcome was the discovery of a religion. This beautiful thing is wine? Like for pleasure? Oh, with food, too… No way.
Way.
Wine seemed an approachable beast to conquer. Because I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I simply started buying more California Cabernet, because it was approachable, popular, and widely available—oh, and because it was apparently the perfect bedfellow for steak. Which I love.
But as my journey from well-done steak progressed to obsession for steak tartare, so did my interest in wine transform into a deep appreciation of what it takes to produce a glass that will knock your socks off.
And yet (throughout years of being exposed to the industry) one thing did not change.
The snobbery. And the elite-ness surrounding wine and food.
By discussing wine (and food) in this esoteric, don’t-read-me-because-you-won’t-understand, grow-up-and-have-more-money-first way, the industry, often unintentionally, alienates the very people it should be trying to attract. My generation, the 20-30 somethings, are consumers who like to redefine the status quo. Do things our own way, from work to play to appreciating wine and food. Curious as hell. But still, for many, with more time than money on our hands.
Wine doesn’t have to be expensive. Or exclusive. Wine grows everywhere, and it wants to be drunk.
So let’s practice.
Cheers.
|
|