Mostly an update: Thanks to all who replied. 12 people, 10 pours. PLEASE pour carefuly so that everyone gets a reasonably sized, reasonably clear/clean/sediment_free pour: Cheers, Jim ----- Forwarded message from "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> ----- Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 11:34:35 -0600 From: "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> To: wine(a)thebarn.com Subject: [wine] Any Pinot from Any Where at 510 Greetings, Many thanks to Warren and Ruth. A most excellent time. This week, we're going to the 510 for Pinot. Any Pinot from anywhere. Pinot blanc/gris/grigio/noir/etc. From OR or CA or Burgundy... Should be fun. 510 Groveland Yes: Russ/Sue McCandles Betsy Lori Brgndy Dave Turan Jim/Louise Annette S. Bill S. Karin Nicolai Brgndy Bob Regrets: Warren/Ruth Fred/Kim The reservation is for 10 people (we're at 9, can/will update w/ the 510 on Thursday.) We can accomodate 10 pours in Pinot/Burgundy glasses (we're at 7 so far). I'm willing to act as "Steward du jour". Since Bob's out of town, please contact me, or someone els e who's active on the list, if you plan to join us on Thursday. My work phone is 763 494 1907. I've included Russ's notes from last December's Brgndy affair, as well as an article on the DNA mapping of cats. Cheers, Jim The 510 Restaurant 510 Groveland Ave MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55403 Phone: 612-874-6440 February 16, 2005 WINES OF THE TIMES Poetry and Attitude, Pinot Noir's Paradox By ERIC ASIMOV NO other wine conjures up poetic descriptions like pinot noir; no other wine forges as direct a path to the soul. If a wine could make a person cry, it would have to be a pinot noir. A wine like this is bound to have a pretty big mystique, and pinot noir wears its like a rap star wears gold. It's a femme fatale. It's a temperamental artist. It's very sensitive. There are times when the Dining section's wine panel would like to say to pinot noir, "Snap out of it!" But then we catch ourselves; our task requires us to taste these unruly wines, not to discipline them. Sometimes the act of choosing wines to taste does not even require logic; we simply make arbitrary decisions. Such was the case when we decided recently to sample some pinot noirs from New Zealand in the company of pinot noirs from the central coast of California, a big stretch that reaches from San Francisco Bay south to Santa Barbara County. Why the central coast? Without being scientific about it, we simply wanted to compare the New Zealand pinots with a selection of American pinots. We could have chosen the Russian River Valley in Sonoma County, or the Anderson Valley in Mendocino County, but instead we decided on the central coast, for no better reason than that it had been a while since we had tasted a selection of these wines. Not that any specific conclusions would have been possible. The central coast is too big an area, with too many different sites - terroirs, if you don't mind - to draw any conclusions from the 12 California bottles we sampled. The same goes for New Zealand. Our 12 bottles perhaps did not adequately reckon with its selection of grape-growing sites. But the tasting was nonetheless illuminating because the general comparison, between New Zealand and California, was fascinating. Florence Fabricant and I were joined by two guests, William Sherer, sommelier at Atelier, and David Gordon, wine director at TriBeCa Grill, and we all went into the tasting believing that, for the most part, we would be able to tell the New Zealand pinots from the California pinots. In California, known for its sunny warmth, the challenge for pinot growers, assuming the soil and other variables are correct, has been to find sites that are cool enough to ripen the grapes evenly so that acidity will balance the sweetness. Too often California pinots cannot find this balance, and the result is a cloyingly sweet, syrupy wine or a hot, overly alcoholic wine. In New Zealand, generally speaking, growers face the opposite challenge, just as in Burgundy, the world's benchmark for pinot noir. Having rejected most of New Zealand's northern island as too hot, pinot noir planters have concentrated in the cooler southern island, where warm days balance cold nights. When the balance is right and the grapes ripen sufficiently, sweetness harmonizes with acidity. Unbalanced, the wines tend to be acerbic. I can hear the wines pouting again. As it turned out, our guesses in the blind tasting were pretty accurate. The too-sweet, too-big wines tended to be from California; the too-thin, too-tart wines tended to be from New Zealand. In the middle were the wines we liked best; again and again balance was the key. Foremost among them was our top wine, the 2001 Peregrine from the Central Otago region of New Zealand, which, at $24, was also our best value. The Peregrine was one of the few wines with some complexity, with aromas and flavors that shaded beyond the obvious, and it demonstrates that the New Zealand pinot noir growers are on the right track. While some decent pinot comes from Marlborough to the north, and from Martinborough on the southernmost part of the North Island, Central Otago, the most southerly wine region in the world, is where they have staked their claim for pinot noir. We tasted three pinots from Central Otago, and all made the list. An '02 Mount Difficulty was actually sweet enough that Mr. Gordon said it had achieved California-style ripeness, but its acidity was sufficient to make it harmonious. An '01 Mount Maude was unusually earthy - Mr. Sherer called it Burgundian - and though it seemed a bit disjointed, Mr. Gordon said it had a lot of potential. The California wines approached the balancing point from the opposite end. Too many were what Ms. Fabricant called "fruit baskets." To my mind they often lacked structure, that is, a spine of acidity or tannin that would give the wine a beginning, a middle and an end. The ones we liked, though, offered up a few angles on which to hang their lush fruit. The '02 Morgan, from Rosella's Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands, had acidity worthy of the New Zealand wines, while the '02 Au Bon Climat from the Santa Maria Valley showed excellent balance and finesse, as did an '02 Tantara, from a neighboring winery to Au Bon Climat. One wine that completely divided the panel was the 2000 Calera, from the Jensen Vineyard on Mount Harlan in the Gabilan range east of Salinas. Caleras always need more time than most California pinots to develop, but I feel they have more character than most and are worth the wait. The two of us who liked it best would have placed it higher up the list. The other two would have dropped it completely. It was the sort of at-loggerheads situation that pinot noirs seem to delight in creating. But then, things are never easy when it comes to pinot noir. Tasting Report: New Zealand to California and Back Again BEST VALUE Peregrine Central Otago New Zealand 2001 $24 *** Complex and balanced, with layers of fruit, truffle and mint flavors; improved in the glass. (Empson U.S.A., Alexandria, Va.) Morgan Santa Lucia Highlands Rosella's Vineyard 2002 $38 *** Aromas of licorice, cherry and mint; sweetness balanced by good acidity. Au Bon Climat Santa Maria Valley La Bauge au-Dessus 2002 $33 *** Juicy fruit and lingering flavors; a wine with finesse and structure. Tantara Santa Maria Valley 2002 $32 ** 1/2 Lots of cherry and mint flavor yet well-etched and graceful. Koura Bay Marlborough New Zealand Blue Duck 2002 $30 ** 1/2 Earthy, light-bodied, balanced and elegant with lingering flavors and a touch of complexity. (Weygandt-Metzler, Unionville, Pa.) Mt. Difficulty Central Otago 2002 $30 ** 1/2 Mistaken for a California wine; sweet fruit balanced by good acidity. (Grape Expectations Wine Imports, Raleigh, N.C.) Highfield Marlborough New Zealand 2000 $27 ** 1/2 Light-bodied and lightly tart, with sour cherry, menthol and mineral flavors. (Via Pacifica Imports, Sebastopol, Ca.) Belle Glos Santa Maria Valley Clark & Telephone Vineyard 2002 $39 ** 1/2 Thick California-style texture, but not too sweet; lingering dark fruit flavors. Mt. Maude Central Otago New Zealand 2001 $30 ** Earthy and a bit rustic, with persistent mineral flavors (American Estates, Philadelphia) Calera Mt. Harlan Jensen Vineyard 2000 $50 ** Angular and tannic, with complexity and structure; panel divided. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- ------------------------------ * * Dr. James Lee Ellingson, Adjunct Professor jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, tel: 651/645-0753 fax 651 XXX XXXX * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *