Orange Macabeo and inky Sumoll from Spain and Alice Feiring bids Texas adieu

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Above: My super good friend Joe Pat Clayton (right) was as geeked as me and Tracie P to taste natural Spanish wines last night with Alice Feiring (right).

Alice Feiring hit the Groover’s Paradise like a Texas tornado. The few days she spent her with us were filled with honkytonking, two-stepping, great parties and great friends and lovers of natural wine, and a superb fish dinner prepared by Chef Esteban Escobar paired with a flight of Spanish natural wines last night at Vino Vino (the best little wine bar in Texas).

The two wines that impressed me the most were the Laureano Serres 2009 Abeurador Macabeo (above, 100% Macabeo grown in clay soils, vinified with 2 days of skin contact, no added sulfite [note by importer José Pastor]) and the Els Jelipins 2004 Sumoll (Sumoll with a small amount of Garnacha, grown in clay and limestone soils, whole-cluster fermentation in open-topped barrels, no added sulfite).

The Macabeo was rich and unctuous, tannic and chewy in the mouth and unbelievably delicious.

The Jelipins 2004 Sumoll was mind-boggling good. Impenetrably inky and viscous on the palate, a stilnovo sonnet with alternating rhymes of earth and fruit.

Chef Esteban’s excellent cooking has been reaching new heights lately but last night he took it over the top (especially considering the Herculean effort necessary to create a wine dinner using only Kosher fish and vegetables).

Kim and SO Alfonso also came down from Dallas expressly for the event.

Above, from left: Alice, Lewis Dickson (Texas Hill Country natural winemaker), Tracie P, Jeff Courington (owner Vino Vino), and Russ Kane (author of Vintage Texas, the top Texas wine blog).

And so this morning we took Alice to the airport (she stayed with us, of course). It was a great visit and we were sad to see her go. She certainly made a profound impression on the Texans she met. And I’d like to think that they also impressed her with the Texas-sized welcome they gave her.

We’ll miss her but somehow I think she’ll back sooner than later. Once you’ve danced to the rhythms of Dale Watson at Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon, there’s no turning back…

Vega-Sicilia Unico 1960 (magnum) for Alice Feiring

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Many wonderful bottles were opened last night in the home of our good friends Patricia Winston and Bill Head to celebrate Alice Feiring’s first visit to Texas.

But it was Alfonso who gave her the BIGGEST Texas welcome with an unforgettable bottle of 1960 Vega-Sicilia Unico in magnum (!) and original wooden case. I was blown away by how savory and rich the wine was, vibrant and with an acidity that I frankly wouldn’t have expected in a wine this old. A truly amazing — in so many ways — bottle of wine.

Patricia and Bill had assembled a who’s who of Austin-based winemakers, collectors, and wine professionals for the occasion. But it was Devon Broglie (right, with me, center, and Alfonso, left) who stepped up to the plate to extract the cork. Nice work, Devon!

Even Alice looks TALLER in TEXAS! That’s our good friend, journalist, author, and radio personality Mary Gordon Spence (right).

What a great night, great wines, and great folks…

There might just be a few spots left for a dinner to be held in Alice’s honor tonight in Austin at Vino Vino. In her words, the wines we’ll be tasting are “hard-core natural.”

Naughty with Alice Feiring in Austin

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A schlub from Southern California had the very distinct pleasure and honor of escorting two very fine ladies out on the town in Austin, Texas last night.

After a quick stop at Vino Vino (where Alice will be speaking tomorrow night at a dinner in her honor, featuring unsulfured Spanish wines imported by José Pastor), we just had to head over to another one of me and Tracie P’s favorite restaurants, Fonda San Miguel, for some 1998 Tondonia Rosada by López de Heredia (hell yeah!). After all, didn’t Alice write the book on this winery and the wines that have meant so much to so many of us no matter where we eat, love, and pray?

Guacamole, queso fundido, corn tortilla chips fried in vegetable shortening, and huitlacoche tamales made for superb pairings…

Next came an intermezzo at an excellent Kentucky Bourbon and Virginia Ham party hosted by Boots in the Oven in the home of Erin and Nat (Alice didn’t eat any ham, for the record, in case you were wondering).

And what first visit to the Groover’s Paradise would be complete without some two-stepping at the Broken Spoke and honkytonking at Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon?

Didn’t I read once in the New York Times that Austin is the type of town where “everyone gets home safe”?

Happily somehow, the schlub managed to ferry his precious wards back to tranquility and a roof over their heads.

We’re heading out early this morning for some Texas Hill Country wine tastings…

Salone del Gusto 2010: dispatch from Turin

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This just in from David and Katie Pitre (below), owners of Tecolote Farm and 2010 Texas delegates to the Salone del Gusto in Turin.

First photo from a dinner with the farmers cooperative group from
Cuneo, Piedmont last night…

And the second photo of Alice Waters addressing the American delegates today at Terra Madre. Carlo Petrini says we’ll have a Terra Madre gathering in the US next year. All is going well.

Third photo taken at Eataly today, we’ll have to try this Treviso variety next year!

Best, Katie

1980 Vallana Spanna BRILLIANT!

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Vallana Spanna

Posting in a hurry this morning but just had to transmit the joy contained in a bottle of 1980 Vallana Spanna shared with me last night by my friend and colleague Rob Forman, a dude who really knows his Italian wine.

1980 was not a great vintage in Piedmont and as a matter of fact, I cannot remember tasting anything from Langa nor Novara from that year (if you have any notes on the vintage, please share!).

Slightly shaken by the trip and somewhat cloudy, this wine was no worse for the wear: it was entirely brilliant, alive and fresh, with bright acidity and delicious wild berry fruit and mud. So unbelievably good.

Vallana Spanna

When time permits, I’ll post about some of the fascinating wines that Rob opened with me and a group of Austin wine professionals (the other Pomino, anyone?).

And I’ll also tell the captivating story of how he came into possession of this amazing bottle.

Vallana Spanna

Click on the photo of the back label to view more closely.

That’s all for now, folks. Me? I’m keeping it between the ditches…

Sunrise with a Brunello master: Sangiovese is safe in Montalcino

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One of the most thrilling experiences of my recent sojourn in Tuscany was a sunrise ride through the vineyards of Il Poggione with the estate’s winemaker Fabrizio Bindocci (above). I’ve known Fabrizio for seven years now and I consider him a friend and a teacher. Born and bred in Montalcino, he is one of its top winemakers and one of the appellation’s greatest defenders and protectors. In recent years, he has spoken — passionately, eloquently, and very publicly — in favor of not changing Brunello appellation regulations to allow for grapes other than Sangivoese.

And I don’t think that Fabrizio would mind me calling him a toscanaccio: he has the sharp wit and the sometimes acerbic tongue for which Tuscan men have been famous since their countryman Dante’s time and beyond. I try to visit and taste with him every year and I’ve never known him to mince words.

I love the wines he bottles, for their integrity and for their purity, for what they represent and the people who make them, and for their honest and utterly delicious aromas and flavor.

Of course, my $48K question to Fabrizio was will the modernizers of Brunello succeed in changing the appellation regulations and obtain their desired allowance of international grape varieties in the wine?

Brunello as a monovarietal wine, i.e., 100% Sangiovese, is safe, he told me. And he doesn’t fear that the new and decidedly modern-leaning regime in the Brunello producers association will attempt to change the Brunello DOCG to allow other grapes. The body, he said, is currently studying verbiage for the soon-to-be unveiled “new” appellations under the EU’s Common Market Organisation reforms. (This summer, authority to create new European wine appellations passed from the individual states to the European Commission in Brussels.)

The bottler-members of the association are evidently considering a new appellation, putatively called “Montalcino Rosso,” that would allow for more liberality in creating blends raised in Montalcino. This would seem to represent a palatable compromise — my words, not his — between traditionalists who want to preserve Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino as monovarietal wines and modernists who what to cash in on the de facto Montalcino brand (again, my words, not his).

Daybreak in the vineyards of Montalcino during harvest is a sight that everyone should see before leaving this earth. There is a light that brings a transcendent clarity to the mind and the soul.

As the sun rose over this immensely beautiful place, I couldn’t help but think of Dante and the roles that light plays in his Comedìa as metaphor of knowledge and love.

I was relieved on that morning to discover that (it seems) Brunello has emerged from its selva oscura, its dark wood. (Observers of Italian wine will appreciate my paronomasia.)

Midway in the journey of our life
I came to myself in a dark wood,
for the straight way was lost.
Ah, how hard it is to tell
the nature of that wood, savage, dense and harsh
the very thought of it renews my fear!
It is so bitter death is hardly more so.
But to set forth the good I found
I will recount the other things I saw.

Indisputably Natural in San Diego: Cornelissen, Dettori, López de Heredia

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N.B.: Jaynes Gastropub does allow corkage, for a reasonable fee, for wines not offered on their wine list.

Chrissa, her husband Dan, Rikkers, and I opened a memorable flight of indisputably Natural wines last night at Jaynes Gastropub in San Diego. I write “indisputably Natural” with a capital N because any mention of Natural wine these days seems to spark the ire of some of the more cranky among us here in the enoblogsphere. But there’s no doubt in my mind that the community of wine bloggers who have laid claim to this precious and widely coveted epithet would agree that the three wines in question fulfill the criteria prescribed by even the most rigorous enforcers of Natural wine doctrine and dogma.

Perhaps nowhere has more been written about the wines of Frank Cornelissen than at Saignee and, ubi major minor cessat, I will defer to Cory’s excellent blog for a treatment of Cornelissen and the cult that has taken shape around him.

The wines, raised on the slopes of Mt. Etna, are not easy to come by in this country and I was thrilled to finally get my hands on some. Together, we tasted the 2007 Munjebel Bianco (native yeast, skin contact, no SO2, no filtration). Munjebel is dialectal toponym for Mt. Etna, btw (akin the Sicilian Muncibeddu or the Italian Mongibello, meaning monte bello or beautiful mountain).

The synthetic cork bulged out slightly from the lip of the bottle’s neck and the shoulder was very high. I believe this was due to a second fermentation in the bottle and the wine had a slight spritz to it.

I don’t have time today to go into the epistemological implications of this wine, which I find fascinating (the wine and the implications). But I can report that I thoroughly enjoyed it (bright acidity, bright citrus fruit, balanced alcohol). I believe the wine has not yet stabilized (it had rested for about a week in my wine locker in San Diego before we opened it last night). I’m looking forward to opening the other bottles in my allocation: this wine is alive, IT’S ALIVE, as Dr. Frankenstein might say.

The 2006 Bianco by Dettori? This was simply one of the best wines I’ve ever had in my life. Not a great vintage for Dettori but sure to be a 20+ in its cellar life. Tannic and rich, bright bright acidity and a crunchy mouthfeel. It took some time for this wine to open up but it was purely sublime.

We also ordered the 1998 López de Heridia Tondonia Rosado from Jayne’s list. The oxidative wine was a perfect closer after the thought-provoking, intense whites (orange wines, really), and was a fantastic pairing for my schnitzel and spaetzle (recommended by Jayne). Anyone who visits Do Bianchi regularly knows just how much Tracie P and I love LdH — anytime, anywhere.

After dinner we went to a new club on El Cajon Blvd. to see Jon’s band the Fairmounts play their blend of 60s soul.

That’s A.J. Croce (yes, Jim Croce’s son!) on keyboards… how cool is that? They completely rocked the house…

Wrapping up this quick San Diego trip (to ship and deliver wine for my wine club 2Bianchi.com), I just had to share this photo of my awesome nephews Abner and Oscar (brother Micah and sister-in-law Marguerite’s children).

Abner is holding a photo of his great-great-grandparents, mama Judy’s grandparents. It’s so remarkable to think about how far we’ve come from Russia, Poland, and Austria. And how radically the world has changed since then.

Would they have ever imagined that their progeny would be drinking unyeasted wines from the slopes of Mt. Etna on the far-flung shores of California?