A New Mexico sparkler

Ever since my trip to Arizona in September, I have been intrigued by wines made from grapes grown in the Southwest. A Nebbiolo grown in Arizona? The intrigue continues with a sparkling wine from a New Mexico producer.

I first learned of the Gruet Blanc de Noirs when Wine Spectator featured it recently as a Smart Buy. Not only is this relatively inexpensive sparkler rated a 90 by Wine Spectator, it’s also ranked 43 in that publication’s Top 100 wines for 2011. I picked this up for less than $14 to enjoy with my siblings and their spouses for Thanksgiving.

Wine Spectator uses terms like “elegant and focused,” but for our gathering, we found this wine exceptionally good, light and toasty with delicious fruit. And oh was it drinkable!

It’s not recommended for cellaring, as most NV sparklers are usually designated “drink now.” But I have had good success in the past holding a NV wine for as long as 3 years. Wine Spectator suggests you ought to be able to hold this one until 2014.

This was a delightful find and I expect to pick up 1 or 2 more to have around. I rate this with a 9 using my scale at the left.

Adding to the closet

It seems I haven’t written anything here since my trip to Arizona, and there’s good reason for that. It’s not that I’ve been negligent in writing about the wines I’ve been drinking, it’s just that I haven’t been drinking all that much wine of late.

There were a couple wines, but in those few cases I was negligent because I didn’t jot down any notes. In one case I did jot down a few words. It was for a 2001 Rioja, the Aribau Cuvee Reserva, a Spanish Tempranillo about which I wrote: “Very light, almost like a Pinot. Delicious fruit.” I think I drank this wine at a tapas restaurant in Columbia, S.C., but I’m not certain. Apparently Parker rated this vintage with a 90.

I did find a Kim Crawford 2010 Sauvignon Blanc for just $11; it was an exceptional bargain as this wine usually retails for $17. It was excellent!

And there was a white from Portugal, the 2010 Casa de Vila Verde, the first white wine I’ve had from Portugal. I recall it being very fresh and delightful, but I jotted down nothing for notes.

But I haven’t been completely idle. I’ve added some exciting wines to my cellar – er, closet – and some of them I expect to be drinking this Thanksgiving with family.

One addition to the closet is a 2009 Lirac, which is in the Southern Rhône, the Chateau de Segries Cuvee Reservee by Henri de Lanzac. I drank this one twice so far – once at a restaurant in Conway, S.C. and the other during a dinner with my friend Curt – but I’m afraid I didn’t take any notes. Suffice it to say that I was very impressed with this wine, considering it was just $15. Ah, but I have two more bottles and I will definitely devote a post to this exceptional find. And if you can’t wait, just go out and buy some! It’s that good!

I’ve decided I’m going to attempt to create a vertical flight – or at least as close as I can come to creating one – for Châteauneuf-du-Pape. With the exception of 2008, I have bottles going back to 2005. Even accounting for the fact that my wine cellar is a closet, these wines are age-worthy, many of them for 15 to 20 years.

My most recent additions of these are the 2009 vintage from Domaine Jean Roger, about which I know absolutely nothing (Cellar Tracker suggests you hold until at least 2014), and the basic bottling from Domaine de Cristia. This latter wine comes from a very consistent producer and the 2009 vintage was rated with a 92 and is expected to cellar through 2023. Domaine de Cristia offers some higher end Châteauneufs that are also 90+ wines, but these will cost you; the basic bottling you can find for about $32.

I also recently added a 2009 Beaujolais, the Domaine Diochon Moulin-a-Vent, which we may drink this weekend.

Some new ones for drinking right away I picked up include the 2010 vintage of the Dry Creek Vineyard Wilson Ranch dry Chenin Blanc. The 2009 vintage was such an exceptional value with its fresh, crisp taste that I thought it worth the risk to try the 2010. We shall see.

For Thanksgiving, Curt was kind enough to donate his Italian Merlot, the2009 Falesco from Umbria. This is a reasonably-price wine from a consistent producer who has offered solid wines for the past decade; this should be a decent match with turkey. We’ll also have the Gruet Blanc de Noir sparkler from New Mexico, which Wine Spectator rated as a Smart Buy recently and gave it a score of 90. Not bad for $13.

So while I may have been silent recently, there will be plenty to write about very soon!

A “ghostly” and “insane” dinner

I enjoyed another wine tasting menu while in Jerome, Arizona, and I also want to share with you the wines I drank with a nearly splendid meal I had at The Asylum, the restaurant in the Jerome Grand Hotel (which allegedly is haunted!).

When I saw that The Asylum had a tasting menu, I knew I had to try it. You may select four wines from their tasting menu for a reasonable price of $10. It’s a great opportunity to try new varietals as well as new producers.

My first choice was the Schwartzbock Grüner Veltliner 2009. This was a light, fresh, juicy and crisp Austrian wine, one of my favorite varietals. I loved this one.

The next one was a Spanish blend that was 60 percent Verdejo, 25 percent Viura and 15 percent Sauvignon Blanc. The Con Class Rueda 2009 was full of orchard fruit on the nose and had a clean mineral taste with a bit of lemon. It finished like a cool mountain stream lined with Colorado columbine. It was, indeed, a delightful wine.

Moving on to reds, I tasted the Los Lobos Malbec 2009, a very interesting wine from Mendoza that was spicy on the nose with a hint of cassis. Yet despite that intriguing aroma, the wine was very subtle on the pallet without much tannin. The finish was smooth and nice. All the flavors were very interesting and I couldn’t quite nail them down, but I know that this is a wine that I would enjoy a bottle of.

My final wine of the flight was the Villa Pozzi Nero d’Avola 2009 from Sicily. I’ve been disappointed by these wines in the past, but this one redeemed all its brethren. It had a rich, blackberry nose heavy with fruit, but not off-putting. It was delicious, juicy with plum and cherry with a tight, dry finish. You don’t taste the tannin until the finish, which leads me to think that this has some closet time potential. This was very good, certainly the best Nero d’Avola I’ve had after a string of disappointments. In fact, I ordered a full glass of this to enjoy with my entree, their delicious grilled Achiote rubbed pork tenderloin, prepared perfectly.

The previous night I had dinner at The Asylum as well, they had so many good wines! I began that evening with the Indaba 2010 Chenin Blanc from the Western Cape, South Africa. I haven’t had much success with South African wines, but this was a nice find. It was smooth and delicate like an excellent Chenin Blanc, ripe with apple, pear, and even a bit of pepper on the finish.

My dinner was a Rocky Point shrimp scampi with tomato Beurre Blanc and shredded Parmesan brown rice. With this I had the Zolo 2010 Torrontes from Mendoza. The Torrontes had a really nice bite with my appetizer, a delicious butternut squash soup that was divine! By the way, if you visit the restaurant’s website, you can find the recipe! The wine was also quite good with the entrée, although the shrimp was a tad overcooked.

All in all, the wines found at The Asylum were delicious and the variety inspiring.

Nebbiolo grown in Arizona?

I hadn’t visited the former ghost town of Jerome, Ariz., for 30 years, so I was anxious to return to see what had happened to this arty enclave clinging to the side of a mountain determined to slide into oblivion. When last I visited, the hippie and art crowd were just beginning to squat, turning old, crumbling buildings into new shows, restaurants and even apartments and condos. I in no way expected to find so many wine tasting shops when I returned, and one I visited had some very interesting wines produced from grapes grown in Arizona.

Yes, in Arizona, and among them was a rosé crafted from Nebbiolo grown in the hills north of Wilcox, Ariz., which is in the southeast corner of the state. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Caduceus Cellars & Merkin Vineyards Tasting Room in Jerome offers a wide variety of wines and tasting flights, including some that match cheese and other appetizers with their wines. The $10 flight I tried included four wines: a white, a rosé, and two reds.

The first wine was called Dos Ladrones, a 2010 vintage made with Malvasia Bianca and Chardonnay grown in Arizona. It had a bright, fragrant nose, but was a bit creamy on the first taste. Happily this creaminess disappeared on the finish, which was fresh and had just the right combination of orchard fruit and citrus. There seemed to be a little bit of herb and maybe even some white pepper? It was a very nice start.

Then came the wine that intrigued me the most: a rosé made from Nebbiolo, but not just any Nebbiolo, but Nebbiolo grown in Arizona! What was this? To me, Nebbiolo is a truly noble grape used to craft outstanding Barolo. And like Pinot Noir, Nebbiolo can be a delicate and finicky grape. Certainly, I was familiar with the beautifully elegant and even muscular Barolos, but a rosé?

Called Lei Li Rosé, this 2010 vintage had an almost amber pink color. The nose was fresh with lovely but so ephemeral fruit that had just a bit of zing to it. Tasting, this wine was very delicate, the flavors very subtle but really quite good followed by a lingering finish. Seriously, the flavors were so delicate that I could see someone easily missing them. This was a wine that demanded your attention, but was a delight to drink. So delicate, I wondered how to pair it with cheese. They had an answer for me at the shop, but unfortunately I can’t remember the name of the cheese; it was a creamy French cheese with a mild flavor unless you got piece next to the rind.

calvinwazoo

Number 3 was a 2009 vintage blend of Syrah and Malvasia Bianca, also grown in Arizona, called Primer Paso. It had a very oaky nose, so overpowering that I couldn’t smell any fruit no matter how I swirled and sniffed. The oak was so strong it was almost like sniffing a cedar box. It was juicy, not jammy, on the taste, but there was nothing left for the finish. Not my favorite at all, but surprisingly it was the favorite wine of one of the pourers in the shop.

The final wine was made with grapes from California, a 2008 vintage blend of Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon. Called Nagual de la Naga, I half expected something robust and even muscular, not just because it was the last wine in the flight, but also because one of the pourers described it as a “super Tuscan” style wine. Powerful it was not, but it was a nice wine. There was a light nose of cherry and cassis with a bit of herb and earth; very rustic. It was juicy and bright, the Cabernet nicely tempered, I thought, by the Sangiovese. It had nice tannin as well, suggesting that it might cellar for a few more years.

So there you have it. Even in a town like Jerome, Ariz., you can find wine tasting rooms with interesting offerings and even some surprises, like that Nebbiolo rosé.

Los Nevados

The Mendoza region of Argentina is probably best known for Malbec, so it may come as a surprise that more and more land is being planted with Chardonnay. The Los Nevados 2010 is very inexpensive at less than $10 a bottle, and being unoaked, it is an excellent choice for making kir.

Beyond that, there’s nothing truly remarkable about this wine. It is fresh and vivacious with a crisp finish and is excellent for drinking on its own. These very qualities make it highly suitable for mixing with crème de cassis, turning it into the popular aperitif from Provence. You can serve with a variety of cheeses – goat cheese works really well, as well as pungent French cheeses – or smoked salmon.

So if you’re looking for something different to serve with appetizers, consider this kir and this Chardonnay will work excellently.

I rate this wine with a 7.5 using my scale at the left.