One of voices I respect most in oenocyberspace, Eric Lecours, weighed in over the weekend with this comment and clarification on my recent post about La Chablisienne:

“Great choice…La Chablisienne produces excellent wines at great prices. The producer is actually a cooperative, considered by many to be the best in France. Despite escalating prices, I find Chablis itself is an excellent value in general. I recently ran across a Domaine (not négociant) Fevre ‘04 Grand Cru Preuses @ 35 euros in Beaune. That level of quality requires 2x+ the price in the Côte de Beaune.

(The best cooperative in the world however…Produttori del Barbaresco, of course).”

I couldn’t agree more with Eric that Produttori del Barbaresco is the “best cooperative in the world” (those of you who read my blog regularly know that it’s one of my all-time favorite producers).

It’s great to know that there are still some good values in Burgundy (especially in the light of the Euro’s rising value).

But the best news is that Eric has published a new blog called The Burgundy Journal. Eric is currently working with Étienne Grivot (of Jean Grivot) in Vosne-Romanée and his insights into the current state of Burgundian winemaking are riveting. His blog will quickly become required reading for a wide swath of Burgundy lovers and wine writers. Check it out…

Above: Charles Scicolone, Italian wine maven* extraordinaire (right), with Stefano Campatelli, president of the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino at I Trulli. Charles was the keynote speaker at this year’s Benvenuto Brunello vintage tasting, where I had the chance to taste bottlings going back to 1979. Charles had tasted them all before, of course!

Week before last, I was the guest of my good friend and Italian wine maven Charles Scicolone at a collector’s dinner at Gramercy Tavern. Charles is often to invited out by top wine connoisseurs: he is without a doubt one of the city’s most adored wine personalities and one of the country’s leading experts on Italian wine. The bottomline? He’s a lot of fun to be around and people want to know what he thinks of their wine.

Above: the dinner opened with a 1976 Château d’Yquem and foie gras. Not too shabby… “Sweet without being sweet, dry without being dry,” Charles remarked.

I first met Charles back in 1998 when I was writing about wine for The Magazine of La Cucina Italiana. At the time he was the wine director of I Trulli in Manhattan and most nights you would find him talking to guests about wine in the restaurant’s wine bar. My office was only a few blocks away and I soon found myself glued to my seat at the bar nearly every night after work, tasting through flights of Italian wines and trying to glean every tidbit of knowledge I could from his glib insights.

Above: the star of the night was this beautiful magnum of 1985 Échezeaux by Remoissenet Père e Fils.

Beyond Charles’ encyclopedic knowledge of Italian wine and his humorous and highly informative anecdotes, what intrigues me the most is his palate and his “memory” of Italian wines and vintages. Charles began collecting fine Italian wine in the 1970s when there were only a handful of Italian collectors in the U.S. He was part of an informal group of early Italian wine connoisseurs, an illustrious clique that included Lou Iacucci, who was among the first to import fine Italian wines to North America, and Shelley Wasserman, author of the landmark Italy’s Noble Red Wines, one of the first significant monographs on Italian wine published in this country (originally released in 1985; see Frank Prial’s review of the paperback edition).

A steadfast defender of traditional-style Italian wine and an outspoken critic of barrique aging and concentration, Charles has tasted wines and historic vintages of Italian wines that I can only dream of. More significantly, he has had the opportunity to revisit many of those bottlings on repeated occasions.

He began to taste and experience Italian wine long before barriqued, extracted, highly alcoholic, fruit-forward wine became the prevalent style in Italy. Where homogeneity now reigns, Charles remembers a glorious mosaic — from the Aglianico of Campania to the Petit Rouge of the Val d’Aosta (two of his favorites). Simply put, Charles has insights into Italian wines that few of us will ever have because he began drinking and enjoying Italian wines before the veil of modernization was draped over Italy.

È sempre un piacere, as you like to say, Charles, it’s always a pleasure to taste wine with you.

Check out Peter Hellman’s profile of Charles in The New York Sun.

In recent weeks, Charles has been contributing to IADP. Check out his articles.

* maven, from the “Yiddish meyvn (plural mevinim) expert, connoisseur,” from the “Hebrew mēbîn person with understanding, teacher, participle of hēbîn understand, attend to, teach” (OED, online edition).

Wednesday of this week, I had the good fortune to be invited to the Wine Media Guild of New York “Prestige Cuvée Champagnes” tasting, presented by Ed McCarthy, one of North America’s leading bubbly experts.

Some of New York’s top wine writers came out for this dégustation of twenty-three Champagnes, nearly all of them “prestige cuvées.”* Everyone agreed — and sports and wine writer Paul Zimmerman loudly pronounced — that this event was “probably the best Champagne tasting” any of us had ever attended.

Above: they-don’t-make-em-like-that-anymore Ed McCarthy.

Highlights (for me) were 1999 Perrier-Jouët “Fleur de Champagne” Blanc de Blancs (beautifully balanced and nuanced), 1997 Nicolas Feuillatte “Palmes d’Or” Brut (a difficult vintage in Champagne… a surprising stand-alone wine, with intensely seductive aromas), 1999 Bollinger Grande Année Brut (always my favorite, always distinctive), 1998 Deutz “Cuvée William Deutz” Brut (a house I had never tasted… good balance of yeast and fruit flavors), and N[on]V[intage] Krug “Grande Cuvée” Brut (so good… who doesn’t like this wine?).

When it’s good (and there’s a lot of mediocre over-priced wine out there), Champagne can be so alluring, complex and structured yet light and bright. Getting to taste with Ed McCarthy and hear him speak was a thrill for me: Ed, with his white locks and friendly manner, is an American original, a character out of a Studs Terkel story, a wine authority and one of the country’s most adored wine writers (check out this profile of Ed).

Above: it’s always fun to taste with the jovial John Foy (standing, center), who writes for The Star Ledger. Needless to say, the mood was mirthful at this extraordinary tasting.

Here are some of my notes from Ed’s talk:

“Chardonnay is the world’s most maligned grape variety. In Champagne it is at its best” (referring to blanc de blancs, i.e., Champagne made from 100% Chardonnay).

“Prestige cuvées need time, 10-15 years.”

“The wider the glass, the better for tasting prestige cuvées.”

“’88, ’96, and possibly ’02 are the best vintages for Champagne. Drink 2000 now because it is a precocious vintage” (using the term precocious in the true sense of the word, advanced or mature in development).

He also noted that Americans tend to favor “vintage-dated” Champagne, while the French have a greater appreciation of non-vintage Champagne (i.e., wine blended using top cuvées from different vintages). Don’t underestimate non-vintage Champagne, he said.

“1996 Krug is mind-boggling. If you must have only one Champagne before you die, make it ’96 Krug.”

Above: the main course for lunch was a whole, roasted salmon.

Needles to say, the mood was mirthful at this extraordinary tasting and whenever this many vintage, white-haired tasters get together, you are sure to hear epic tales of great wines and unforgettable meals. The best anecdote came from that great defender of traditional-style Italian wine, Charles Scicolone, a board-member of the guild and master of ceremonies (look for my post, “A Night on the Town with Charles Scicolone,” next week). A few years ago, he recounted, he and his wife Michele spent New Year’s eve with Ed and his wife Mary Mulligan in the home of a prominent wine importer. Ed brought a six-liter bottle of Louis Roederer Cristal that had been given to him by the winery. Not knowing where to chill the large bottle, their host filled the toilette with ice and placed the bottle in the bowl. Just before the clock struck midnight, the guests were dispatched to the bathroom to retrieve the wine and discovered that this prestigious bottle had “ended up in the toilette.” Despite this odd juxtaposition, said Charles, the wine tasted great.

Above: the beautiful color of the salmon paled in comparison to the hue of the 2000 Taittinger “Comtes de Champagne” Brut Rosé poured at my table (that’s 1999 Perrier-Jouët “Fleur de Champagne” Blanc de Blancs in my glass to the left).

* The term cuvée denotes “The contents of a vat of wine; a particular blend or batch of wine” (OED, online edition). In Champagne, a cuvée is a superior “blend or batch.”

A little behind on my blog reading, I finally got a chance to digest Franco Ziliani’s post on Carlo Petrini’s recent bombshell (October 27) at the Salone del Vino, entitled “Wine Guides Are Obsolete! Thus Spoke Carlin Petrini” (Franco Ziliani’s blog, Vino al Vino, is probably the best Italian wine blog out there and I have always respected his frankness, his elegant and erudite writing style, his balance and honesty).

The Salone del Vino (literally “Wine Fair”) is an important consumer and trade event, held each year in Turin.

Evidently, Carlo Petrini (the president of Slow Food) made the following statement and stunned the crowd of Italian publishing luminaries gathered to hear his address:

“Our guide,* like the one published by Gambero Rosso,** uses an approach obsolete in its profound essence…

There shouldn’t be guides for A-series wines and guides for B-series wines. The time is right to begin reasoning in a new manner — a way that doesn’t include merit rankings but is based on the quality of those who have a correct approach to wine…”

Winemakers, he said, should listen to their “conscience”: “When your products are released into the market, take care that your wines are not influenced by trends of the moment. Your wines should be an expression of your identity as winemakers.”***

Ziliani has rightly dubbed this bombshell “petriniano pentimento” or “Petrinian repentance.”

As France is mired in the Parker and Parkerization morass, Italy seems to have found its own stick in the mud (check out Alice’ post on Agostini and Nossiter).

Carlin is beginning to grow on me…

—

Notes:

* Slow Food’s Guida al Vino Quotidiano or “Guide to Everyday Wines.”

** Gambero Rosso’s Guida ai Vini d’Italia or “Guide to the Wines of Italy.”

*** I have translated from Ziliani’s account.