Author Archives: Christopher Pratt

Crios de Susana Balbo Rosé of Malbec 2008

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Such a beautiful color, this wine; it’s blindingly clear transparent watermelon candy, crimson rose petals leaching into a luxurious bath, cherry fruit leather drying in Andean sunshine. Strangely enough, I’m enjoying looking at this wine more than I am drinking it: this is a wine that doesn’t demand attention or thought, just enjoyment. Obviously, though, not every wine has to be some kind of profound experience; some are just fine as an accompaniment to White Castle sliders and the dying light of a cool May evening in the back yard. On the other hand, that’s really selling this wine short; there are many, many pink wines out there that are vacuous, boring, sweet, or insipid, and this isn’t that either. It smells of simple grapey strawberries, tastes pretty much like that too, but ends on a stylish pivot towards warm spices and refreshing, palate-cleansing acidity. This might not be the focus of my evening like a great wine would be, but it isn’t detracting from anything else, either.Plus: nine bucks? C’mon, that’s a steal. The Cayus Edith rosé I had last week was nowhere near the wine this one is and cost four times as much; I don’t know of any other sub-$10 wines that deliver as much pleasure as this one.Dominio del Plata
Price: $9
Closure: Stelvin

Knappstein Enterprise Cabernet Sauvignon 1998

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We bought this bottle on holiday at the winery back in October 2002; it was one of the few bottles that wasn’t stolen when our car was broken into in Melbourne a few weeks later. It’s survived two moves – to Washington and back to California – and here it is on a warm Spring afternoon in San Diego. It’s survived and then some.Still somewhat youthfully purple in color with only the faintest hints of aging, the nose is still redolent of warm, dark berries, rich, smooth cedar, and just-cooled vanilla custard. It’s all blackberry jam and custard, served in a Haida bent cedar box (or it could be a Japanese hinoki sake cup, I’m not entirely sure about that).The initial impression is surprise that it hasn’t aged, but then it moves fairly quickly towards a somewhat tannic, disjointed, acidic finish. Hm, strange. Let’s try this again, shall we? The second time around is a winner, with brightly tart cherry fruit straining – and succeeding, to a point – to make itself heard about the maelstrom of decay that’s the base of the wine. The impression is nearly that of a lavender licorice Sweet Tart; it is at fairly complex and mostly still hanging in there just fine, thank you. However, there’s a certain puckery assault on the gums that happens that I’m not a fan of, and the finish is more something I’d expect at a Tijuana dentist’s than a leather-upholstered steakhouse.So: was this wine better when we bought it? Perhaps, but I’m not convinced. Some of the haptics of this wine (if I’m even allowed to use that word!) are disconcerting and unwelcome, but there’s still enough beauty and pleasure here to save it for me. On some level, though, I probably shouldn’t have waited quite so long, dang it.Update: After sitting with this wine for another half an hour, I’m thinking that the problem isn’t age, but cork taint. With some air, it seems more likely that there’s low level TCA contamination here which is causing problems – and that’s a real shame, because I’d guess that a good bottle of this wine would be a wonderful thing indeed 11 years on. Oh well. 🙁Knappstein
Price: $NA
Closure: Cork

Toasted Head Chardonnay 2007

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I haven’t had a glass of this wine in a decade; it still has one of my favorite labels in the state (a fire-breathing bear), but I rarely shop at the places where you’d ordinarily see this (either Costco or dining-experience-style restaurants). Having a look at the bottle just now, it sure looks like the brand has gone walkabout over the last ten years: the address on the back is Woodbridge, which seems wrong; this was originally a R. H. Phillips wine, and the last time I remember researching them, they’d just completed an IPO and were (alongside Mondavi) one of the few California wineries that was publicly held.It looks like Constellation Brands now owns R. H. Phillips; strangely, Toasted Head seems to have been divorced from that brand entirely and is now a brand of its own. They own Mondavi now as well, and I’m guessing they’re now making this stuff in bulk out of the old Mondavi facilities in Woodbridge, hence the address change on the back of the bottle. So, finally, what we have here is a case of a small family winery having done well in the 90’s – and wound up as a virtual label with no real sense of place in the ’00s. Strange.So how is the wine? The nose is agreeably simple, smelling largely of cashew, white peach, and a little bit of banana. Fat and a little unwieldy in the mouth, it heads towards a bananas Foster finish with just a hint of oak propping it all up like a vinuous underwire bra. That being said, it isn’t really perceptibly sweet, which is good, and it does taste good enough to finish the bottle. I suppose what this is is your basic, standard-quality California chardonnay with buttery, oaky fruit and no distracting flavors (read: subtlety or nuance) to get in the way of your enjoyment. To be honest, this is strikes me as a cut-rate Kendall-Jackson Vintners Reserve chardonnay: if you like that, you’ll like this just as well – and not only is the bottle more beautiful, it’ll cost you a few dollars less. This really is exceptional value.Toasted Head
Price: $7
Closure: Cork

Petaluma Riesling 1999

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Unbelievably, it’s taken me two years to realize that so-called sunny California isn’t always. Sure, there were those few 90 degree days in January, but then bupkus until last weekend, so that huge stash of Aussie riesling malingering in my cellar hasn’t dwindled at all. Thankfully, it’s warming up in the evenings – finally – and now it’s time to get a move on.Thanks, Julian, for this wine; this is the bottle that survived the flight back to Seattle after visiting you in Adelaide and Sydney a few years back. It’s survived well, having colormorphosed into a watery Benedictine of sorts, very much a color I’d associated with cheap, flabby California chardonnay. Of course this isn’t that: one sniff and holy cow, I don’t think you could possibly mistake this for a North American wine. It smells of children’s paste, strangely enough, but only faintly; it’s more of a curious mix that calls up bitter orange, neroli, lemon, bergamot, lavender: all of those things you’d associate with a traditional men’s cologne. There’s also the faintest trace of oxidation here, far from unpleasant, and not so much of the stereotypical diesel or kero you’d expect with something this old. The closest comparison I can think of is with Scottish heather honey that’s being produced near a peat-burning Scotch distillery; it’s sweet, floral, a little bit smoky.All over the place in the mouth, it’s hard to pin down the taste or sense of this wine. Moments after swalloing, I’m reminded of artificially flavored fruit gums, so let me back up a moment. It begins in a somewhat austere fashion, all minerals, straw, and wet stone; then, it reveals a fairly full mid-palate, not so much in body but in fruit, of which there’s still quite a bit a decade on. Acidity is very much kept in check – this won’t frighten Grandma – and there’s a lingering sense of sweetness that’s a lovely counterbalance to all of the aged bottle character this wine displays. That kero note does appear, but briefly, and it all finishes on a fairly smooth, fruity, and yet doggedly dry note that seems much less artificial after the first few sips. If anything, it reminds me of quince paste and jasmine flowers. Phenomenal stuff, in short, and far from dead yet. I wonder how long this thing is going to last? This is only bottle of the ’99, but there’s a near-case of the 2002 yet to be drunk…Petaluma
Price: $NA
Closure: Cork

J. K. Carriere Glass 2008

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This is the second vintage of this wine I’d had the chance to drink, and you know what? I just don’t get it. I love pink wine, I love JK Carriere’s pinot noir and chardonnay, and this wine? Let’s just say that anyone who likes this wine presumably really, really loves this wine; to me, it’s kind of like reading Pravda: it’s still recognizably a newspaper, but it sure doesn’t read like one, at least not to me.So what is this wine like? It’s impossibly pale in the glass, more pale than any other pink wine I know. The smell, such as it is, is faint, fragile; it reminds me of traditional English summer drinks such as elderflower-scented water, potentially even rose-and-cucumber water. The acidity is lively, there’s just a hint of carbonation – OK, not really, more the suggestion of spritzig-ness – but on the whole it feels empty, strangely lacking to me. I suppose it’s just missing some ephemeral complementary foodstuff that I haven’t figured out yet – my friend Mark was thinking maybe goat cheese? – but on it’s own it’s very much an enigma, at least to me. J. K. Carriere
Price: $20
Closure: Cork

Chateau de Trinquevedel Tavel 2007

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I can’t imagine anyone under the age of 60 not being embarrassed being seen with this bottle in their supermarket basket; it just screams ostentatious, what with the heavy embossed glass and old school gold capsule… and then there’s the label itself, which looks like a bargain-bin Mexican circus flyer and not even remotely like modern packaging. Still, what’s in a package?The color’s beautiful, far richer and darker than you’d expect from a nominally pink wine. For better or worse, though, the color is a near match for Hawaiian Punch, a favorite children’s sugar-water from the 1970s that Donny and Marie Osmond used to pimp when I was young. Great, not only is the bottle naff, but it’s like I’m back in short pants with a sippy cup again. Sigh.Anyhow, if such a thing as strawberry floor wax exists, then surely it smells like this. Scratch that, it smells like Soviet bloc “strawberry” ice cream dreamed up in an East German cooperative, manufactured from apples and Bulgarian grapes. It is, however, enchanting in its oddness, dredging up memories I’m absolutely sure aren’t mine of Russian tea rooms with small cakes that appear more painted than frosted.Ungodly huge in the mouth, the taste of the wine takes a hard right turn towards the medicinal: St Joseph’s orange-flavored aspirin (you know, for kids!) and prescription cough syrup, all cranberries, alcohol, and unpronounceable molecules promising relief from the ague. It’s all bone dry, creeping out ever so slowly on mineral feet, blood orange rind and candied lemon peel, gentle clover honey and all the time in the world to appreciate what just went down.Honestly, wines like this make me despair that we’ll never get it right in the New World. As much as I love a Susana Balbo rosé of malbec, Bonny Doon’s vin gris de Cigare, or any number of New World pinks, they seem, well, works in progress compared to this wine. What’s taking us so long?Chateau de Trinquevedel
Price: $20
Closure: Cork

Scholium Project Riquewihr 2008

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It’s Friday evening, and I already finished a bottle of their La severita di Bruto with friends, insisting that I wasn’t going to be blogging anything this evening – but one smell of this and yeah, well, I lied.This wine smells of tinned litchi fruit that someone is eating in the middle of a peat smoke fire on the beach. Seriously. I don’t know what to make of it; I’ve never had a wine that smelled like this before. It smells like someone is dredging rose petals through a smoky sludge of decaying leaves and tar. It smells like someone banging chalky erasers against each other in the middle of dusty warehouse of discarded library books. It smells like ground basalt stirred into a solution of sea water and orange flower water. In short, it smells kind of awesome.In the mouth, it gets even stranger. It tastes slightly oxidized, yet fresh, with all kinds of outré notes ranging from off-brand cling peaches to orange blossom honey from Provence to smoked horse meat to, I don’t know, bruised rambutan mixed with gravel. In short, it’s all over the map, delightfully so. The finish lasts for ages, it’s wonderfully rich and fat in the mouth, and opens up a weirdly panoramic vista of fresh air and sunlight.Yeah, it’s weird, but this wine is both sui generis and a real keeper. By the way, the La severita di Bruto?  Also very good if not as much of a look-at-me-I’m-crazy showstopper of a wine. That being said, it’s probably the best sauvignon blanc I’ve had from California; yes, the finish is a bit hot, but it works well with the peppery aspects of the wine, and the aromatics are in a class of their own – kind of like high end Marlborough sauvignon minus the pneumatic passionfruit aromas + some of the mineral aspects of Sancerre in one big, goofy package. Recommended.The Scholium Project
Price: $30 (500 mL)
Closure: Cork

Frescobaldi Nipozzano Chianti Rufina Riserva 2005

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First off all, let me say thank you to my in-laws for this bottle; my family has always had an informal gift-giving rule that goes something like this: “if you can’t eat or drink it, don’t give it.” I’ve probably bought no more than a case of Italian wine in my entire life, so this represents a lovely departure from the norm for me.Being totally unfamiliar with Italian wines, I had to cheat and look this up: this is sangiovese (OK, I knew that much), but with a fruit salad of other stuff thrown in and making up 10% of the blend (malvasia nera, colorino, and a couple of others).Being only marginally familiar with sangiovese in general – notably through encounters with Penfolds and Bonny Doon wines labeled as such – I wasn’t really expected this wine to smell like it does. It doesn’t smell like the odd, anchovy-esque fruit bomb I usually associate with this grape; instead, it smells deathly serious, like some movie prop “Italian wine” served by an extra from Goodfellas. It smells like smoked meats drying in a strawberry jam factory, warm wooden floors and sawdust below, hazy springtime air blowing in through a window. Frankly, it smells like it’s spent a fair amount of time in barrel; what fruit there is seems well hidden behind casky support.It’s surprising to taste the wine; yes, it’s every bit as tannic as I (stereotypically) expect from an Italian red – although it’s not rustically so, it is a bit off-putting – but there’s pretty much a totally out of control fruit orgy going on here as well. Oh my. This stuff is far from demure; although there is just a bit of the smoked fish note I usually expect from sangiovese, it’s decidedly overridden by suggestions of plum tartlets and floral honey. The finish last for quite some time; it reminds me of the smell you get when you find a pawn shop humidor that hasn’t been used in a decade: dusty, faintly tobacco, and softly wooden.On the whole, I suppose what you have here is an Old World wine that’s been made New World enough to be acceptable to a non-Italian audience; yes, there are still tannins and wonderful woody notes from barrel age and quality cooperage, but there’s also a heart of very ripe, sunny Tuscan fruit that should win over anyone who’s initially a bit put off by the somewhat severe nose. All in all, this is a delicious drink and a not very subtle remind that I am course missing out on a lot of quality drinking by never, ever remembering to buy Italian wines. Mea maxima culpa, indeed.Marchesi di Frescobaldi
Price: $20
Closure: Cork

Foundry Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon 2003

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Such beautiful packaging, and such a shame to unwrap the bottle from its stylish red paper, but my cat just got back from the vet and deserved something to help him overcome the trauma, so there you go. This has been languishing in my cellar for years, picked up in Walla Walla during their spring tasting weekend; that time, I had stayed in the Bridal Suite at the Howard Johnson’s – don’t laugh, it was only $5 more, and turned out to have fewer amenities than their usual rooms, but I digress.I was shocked to smell this at first; the first impression is of, well, shit. Ewww. However, once you get past the shock, it does improve, but the bad smell seems to be on an endless, faulty merry-go-round with the other smells of Walla Walla fruit and Kalamata olive. I… am not a fan, admittedly; this smelled quite a bit different when I tasted the wine on site.Thankfully, when you get it past your nose and into your mouth, what you get is a lovely, elegant, supple Washington cabernet that is everything that good wines from that state are: brightly/subtly acidic in the background, with rich, lush, ripe red fruits in the front, all set off nicely against a lumbering backdrop of quality French oak. There is also a very distinctive, very hard for me to describe of something like green olives, salt water, and stale fruitcake hovering around the midpalate; I have a feeling that this wine may be a bit de trop for your average American red wine drinker, but honestly? Try to see beyond the oddness and you may be richly rewarded.Bonus: Jim Dine did the label, which is quite handsome. This wine really does look and feel like a $100 cult Cabernet from California; it’s insanely good value.Foundry Vineyards
Price: $30
Closure: Cork

Bonny Doon Cigare Alternative A 2001

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The marketing materials suggested that this wine would greet 2010 “in fine fashion,” so how is it doing in 2009? I never did try it when originally shipped to wine club members many years ago, but here it is now, after two interstate moves; I’m tired of schlepping it around and now it’s time to slug it back.Immediately after opening the bottle, the smell of this stuff managed to overwhelm the homemade tamales I bought from a door-to-door vendor and has for dinner earlier tonight: this stuff is pungent. Boys and girls, the word of the day is Sauerkirschen: this smells like sour cherries, Moravian I suppose, or whatever those large, cheap glass jars contained back when the USSR still existed and you could buy them cheaply at any American grocery store. Whoa. Really strong, bright, dark, sour cherries. There’s also a hint of something that reminds me of freshly polished shoes: a light leathery note with the sharp tang of shoeshine polish. Pretty cool.What this wine taste like? Again, strong, sour cherries with only the faintest hints of darker flavors. There’s also a rather strange, herbal note here that is something like off-brand spearmint mouthwash; that sounds worse than it is, I know, but it’s very distinctive and not something I’ve encountered before. All of this is tightly grasped by still present, still somewhat hoary tannin, which at first was so unpleasant I considered throwing it out – but over time, it does loosen up enough to get past. Overall, the mouthfeel is pretty strange; it’s like a tug-of-war between not-yet-resolved tannins taking place in the shallow end of a pool. The color of this wine is dark and foreboding, yet it all seems fairly medium-bodied in the mouth, which is I suppose normal for a mature wine like this.All in all, I really don’t know what to make of this wine. Is it too old? Probably not. Was it better young? Who knows? Is the overall disorienting mouthfeel a relic of Bonny Doon’s then-obsessions with spinning cones, microbullage, and other weird winemaker tricks? I’m thinking yes; there’s something just not right about this wine, something getting in the way of the direct transmission from Mother Earth. I get the feeling that if Randall Grahm had made this ten years later it would be OK – but as it is, I imagine that he’d be recherching an awful lot of temps perdu if he were to open this puppy now.To paraphrase Stephen Malkmus: A for effort, B for delivery.Bonny Doon Vineyard
Price: $30
Closure: Cork