Uncle Pythagoras Would be Proud

I wanted to talk today about the use and misuse of the word “terroir”. I will not give in to my desire to defend my beliefs as a “terroirist” despite my yearning to do so. But, whether one agrees with terroir or not, its frequent misuse only adds to everyone’s confusion. Continuing with my theme of Dead White Guy refernces, I was thinking of how similar it was to the Pythagorean Theorem: in a right-angled triangle the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse, c, is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares of the other two sides, b and a, that is, a2+b2=c2. One of the simplest equations ever written, but the greatest minds tried to prove it for centuries to no avail. Terroir is the Pythagorean Theorem of Wine.

Terroir is the combination of natural factors that affect the way grapes grow. I personally stick with a pretty rigid definition, namely that within the larger arena of climate, one can largely determine the character of a grape by knowing the vineyards soil, altitude, slope and aspect. The point is not whether you agree with my assessment of terroir or not. What bothers me is the misuse of the term terroir.

I FREQUENTLY see posts on discussion boards or white-collar-professionals-cum-weekend-wine writers who think that terroir means earth. “The 2005 Chateau _____ Vintage Champagne was full of terroir with earthy tones throughout.” Without delving to far into details and exceptions, Champagne grows on Cretaceous Chalk, so if it was “full of terroir” or tasted of the soil, wouldn’t its flavors be dominated by chalk?

The French word for earth is terre not terroir. True terroir comes from the root terre, but it’s not a direct correlation. The word sinister has its Latin roots in decribing one who is left-handed, but I have yet to hear someone refer to Osama Bin-Laden as that bastard, left-handed murderer.

The use of the word terroir is not restricted to wine. Its used for other agricultural products such as cheese, but also things such as forestry, specifically oak. Scholarly research, such as that of Drs. Paul Kolesar and Bruce Beaver of Duquesne University, doesn’t examine how much earthiness an oak barrel imparts on a wine (and certainly not how much the wood tastes like earth!), but rather the characteristics of oak due to the sum total of natural influences and how this in turn affects the chemical composition of the wood. It’s the same thing for grapes.

March Madness Update
In an earlier post “The Ides of March“, I revealed my pick for the NCAA Tourney, Georgetown. I also revealed that I am usually out of contention very early. Turns out I was spot on, as Georgetown is heading to the Final Four, and I am in the bottom 3% of ESPN’s Tourney Pick ‘Em.

An Apple a Day…

Wine writers and professionals write tasting notes very differently. The “old way” consisted of less flavor and aroma descriptors and concentrated a bit more on charcteristics more fundamental to a wine and its development: texture, balance, length in the palate, etc. Most of the traditional British Wine Writers favored this method. Among them is the venerable Clive Coates, M.W. (Master of Wine). Here is an example of one of Coates’ tasting notes, from one of my favorite Red Burgundies, 1985 Volnay Premier Cru Champans from the Marquis d’Angerville.

“Medium-full color. This is a little lean for the vintage. But perhaps it is still closed. The nose is classy and aromatic – nutty. The finish long and satisfying. The genrosity I’m sure will appear. Very good but not the class and depth for great.”

It doesn’t matter that I enjoyed the wine more (several years later). What is important is how his tasting note differs from the more modern approach, generall attributed to or at least having its beginnings with Robert Parker. An example from Mr. Parker. It is the same wine, vineyard and producer, but from a more recent vintage, the 1999 vintage:

“The medium to dark ruby-colored 1999 Volnay Champans, from a 4-hectare parcel where 50% of the vines are 40 years of age and the balance over 10 years, displays a sweet blackberry nose. Medium-bodied, this wine has an excellent depth of fruit, a supple, velvety texture, and a fresh personality. Loads of intense blackberry, cassis, plum, and spice flavors can be found in its juicy and expressive character. Drink it over the next 7-8 years.”

It is not my intention to debate these two disparate techniques here, but rather examine the oft-asked question: can wine writers really taste such sensations? I emphatically say yes, though I admit that my notes tend to be somewhere in between the two examples given here and if anything are usually less wordy than either.

Nonetheless, as I was sitting down for a wholesome meal of pork chops, sauerkraut and baked apples Sunday, I did my own taste test, that I invite you to repeat at home. I had purchased three types of apples, Macintosh, Fuji and “green” apples to bake with some brown sugar and to accompany my main course. If wine writers and professionals are going to distinguish between Macintosh and Fuji, they’d better have distinguishing characteristics. So I sliced away and set about my tasting.

Very quickly it became clear that the three apples smell and taste very dissimilar. The green apples as expected were typified by a brief sugar-sweetness as they tocuhed my palate and then dominated by the pronounced attack of biting, lemony acidity that followed through forever in the finish. The texture of the Macintosh struck me as it had a waxiness that was not present at all in the green apples and appeared only in traces in the Fuji apples. Flavors and aromas of bananas distinguished the Fujis. In fact the dry, waxiness coupled with the aromas and flavors in the end reminded me very much of the taste of banana as well. I’d like to repeat the experiment with other families of foodstuffs, but my initial observations are that when I say I taste green apples and when I say I taste Macintosh apples, that I am correctly pointing out very distinct flavor sensations. I suspect that with a little practice, or maybe your own experiment or two, you can do the same.

The Ides of March

This will be the last bit of culture of any sort that will be squeezed from me until at least after I’m effectively eliminated from my NCAA Tourney pool. If history is any indication (and this post will have a bit of history or at least historical context for the nerds among us), that will mean that I will again be blogging away about wine no later than Sunday, but possibly earlier. (For the record, I picked the Hoyas, and my sentimental favorite to do well was NC State because Sophomore Ben McCauley is from my home town. They got screwed by the committe and didn’t make it much to my surprise. Also for the record, I coached his older brother and also defeated his father’s team in a parents versus coaches game at our Championship Celebration, but the last time I saw Ben in person he was in second grade: I gather he’s a bit bigger now.)

Anyways, do you know what a Hoya is? You would if you knew greek. It was once a requirement for all Georgetown students to learn both Greek and Latin and their cheer was accordingly half Greek-Half Latin, Hoyas Sextus, literally Behold that Man. You would only know that if you either went to Georgetown, knew both Greek and Latin or were a sink of useless knowledge like me. If you are one of the few that know either Greek or Latin, you may have read the words of the Greek historian Strabo, a contemporary of Caesar, who comments that, “the vine, as you thus proceed [north of Provence], does not easily bring its fruit to maturity.”* Why might that be? Because the further north one proceeds, the cooler the climate and ripeness is more difficult and alcohol is generally lower. Two milennia ago, when the wine trade was first really kicking in among the civilized world, Julius and Brutus and friends went for the sweet stuff with high alcohol.

(While we’re on the subject of dead white guys, was it not Santanaya who proclaimed that, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”?)

Human beings are born with a propensity toward liking things that are sweet. (I can’t find a reference for this although I’ve read it often, so you MD types please comment or otherwise chime in.) Since alcohol has an apparent sweetness to the palate, the macro-wineries of California basically give the consumer what they have always wanted (from the time they were children), wines with high-alcohol or wines with a bit of RS (Residual Sugar) or both. There’s nothing wrong with that in of itself, I’d just like to think that most people would like their palates to advance to enjoy a wider diversity of flavor sensations than they did when they were just out of the womb. I always try to sell someone the wine that’s right for them, but occassionally I fail. One of my best friends hates practically every wine that I pour, and even when I have one that I think he might like, he hates it. I simply tell him, if you have a wine (or a food item) that you don’t like, try to enjoy it as best you can and think to yourself, “What might someone else enjoy about this?” That way, slowly but surely, you very well may enjoy the flavor the next time around.

* Strabo. Geographia. IV.1.2.

Millionaire’s Salad

I have to be perfectly honest: before I started this entry, I had never heard of millionaire’s salad. It came to me in a roundabout way. It also as far as I can tell is the most inappropriate name for a dish that I have ever seen, since the ingredients will likely cost you under $10 if you’re serving less than an army. But let’s backtrack a bit first.

Back in the day, I used to regularly attend wine dinners at the now defunct Judson Grill in Midtown Manhattan. Judson was great, the service was outstanding, and the food was really solid, especially for a place of it’s size. I loved ending dinner with a milkshake of vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, seltzer water and a shot of Jack Daniel’s. It is porbably my favorite dessert in the world to this day.

Every time I ate ate Judson Grill, there was at least one dish that blew you away, and one such dish was a hearts of plam salad. It was so perfect in it’s simplicity, yet so refined. ever since then I have been a fan of hearts of palm.

Heart of palm, also called palm heart, palmito, or swamp cabbage, is a vegetable harvested from the inner core and growing bud of certain palm trees (notably the coconut (Cocos nucifera), Palmito Juçara (Euterpe edulis), Açaí palm (Euterpe oleracea), sabal (Sabal spp.) and pejibaye (Bactris gasipaes) palms). It looks a bit like the white part of a very small leek, and when it is cut up, its white concentric circles look the same.

I popped in to Trilogy Restaurant in Pittsburgh for a simple appetizer or first course and a glass of wine a few nights ago. I had a nice glass of 2003 Summerland Chardonnay from Santa Brabara and took a peak at the menu. Sure enough, hearts of palm salad. Now as I just learned prior to sitting down to type this up, hearts of palm is traditionally served in what is called millionaire’s salad (who knew?). Since I had never heard of this, and because it’s quick and simple to make, I thought I’d mention it here, before I move on to telling you about the Trilogy Salad I did have.

Millionaire’s Salad is artichoke hearts, olives, pimentos, and muchrooms with a red wine vinaigrette and some spices (the recipe I found calls for garlic, thyme and parseley). Since it sounds so delicious and simple, and since I suspect that many of you have heard of such as salad I though it deserved mentioning. I also think it would be a nice spring salad and alternative to your normal antipasti.

But here’s what I had, and my very abstract recipe for it as I remember it from Trilogy.

* 1 14oz can hearts of palm, drained and sliced into dimes sized circles
* 1/2 lb shrimp, boiled or otherwise pre-cooked however you’d like
(grilling the shrimp might actually be nice come to think of it)
* 1/2 box of pre-cooked pasta, al dente, erring on the harder rather than softer side for texture

I’d put some oil and vinegar on them and let them sit and chill for about two hours and then add about 4 Tbsp. of basil pesto and salt and pepper to taste. Sqeeze some lemon juice over it, mix it up one last time and serve…

So there you have it, two simple, inexpensive salads that will add a liitle bit of diversity to your next gathering. Try it with a clean light to medium white, such as:

2005 Bourassa Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc
2004 Adastra Chardonnay, Carneros
2004 Temecula Hills “No Oak” Chardonnay, Temecula

Ernest Gallo 1909-2007

It is with sadness that I report that Ernest Gallo has died. I have had my hand on the keyboard and eyeballs on the computer screen all day and was unaware of this event until just now. To paraphrase the CNBC announcement that just played in my background, “Ernest Gallo took a recipe for wine that he found in the Modesto Public Library and turned E & J Gallo into the world’s largest winery”. That’s the embodiment of the American Dream.

Here’s how Gallo changed the industry. Gallo was the first wine company to hire and train a sales staff spefically to market its brands in individual markets. For example, let’s say I sell Chateau Alan at a retail store in New York. I speak to a rep for the New York distributor if I have questions. That rep also sells 300 other wines form all over the world. He gets Chateau Alan from another company in California who has about 50 different wineries they represent. With Gallo, there’s a Gallo salesperson in all markets, who is responsible for Gallo products and that’s it and he or she works for Gallo. That’s the case a little more often with other large wineries and wine conglomerates, but Gallo was first.

I found this amusing write-up from the James Beard Foundation:

“After the war, Ernest devised a bold new advertising campaign for the company, transforming America’s relationship with wine with his famous “lifestyle” billboards and ads. And in 1945, he brought his little winery to national attention by convincing Life magazine to attend a grape crush at the winery (the key selling point was a scantily-clad woman bathing in wine). But Ernest’s success was due as much to little things as to big ones. He constantly visited stores across the country that stocked his wine, checking on bottle positioning, displays and sales. (He was, as Anthony Dias Blue of Bon Appétit recalls, once arrested in a tiny town in Texas for lurking in local liquor stores. When he explained that he was Ernest Gallo, the sheriff reportedly replied, “and I’m George Washington,” and carted him off to jail). Ernest was tireless-and effective. Between 1948 and 1955, sales rose 400%. He set down his precepts in a three-hundred-page secret marketing “Bible” that the family still uses. He is, Dias Blue asserts, unquestionably “a marketing genius.”

Here is the E&J Gallo Press Release.

So, raise your next glass to a wine industry innovator and legend who lived the American Dream to the fullest…

2003 Summerland Chardonnay, Santa Barbara

Summerland Wines
Santa Barbara, California
Chardonnay
2003, $14.99 Retail Price, $7 per glass at Trilogy Restaurant
PLCB Product Code: 064620

Fresh, floral nose with reserved yellow tropical fruits (pineapple, yellow peach) and a hint of tangerine zest. Good precision and balance with light- to medium weight and a delightful finish. A fine match with hearts of palm & shrimp salad. **

Glory Days

I ended last night in conversation with a friend about modern business classics such as Den of Thieves, Liar’s Parker, The Smartest Guys in the Room and A Random Walk. We were discussing the efficiency and inefficiency of financial markets. It got me thinking again about wine prices and my most recent “random walk” down the aisles of a wine store.

As I perused the selections available, a few bottles of Calera Pinot Noir, the single-vineyard stuff, caught my eye. $55 a bottle. If you have been into wine for a while, you’ll remember the following. If you’re new to wine, the story is as meaningful as ever.

Calera is an outstanding producer of California Pinot Noir. For a while in the mid-1990’s, Calera was fairly cultish, tough to find, expensive vis-a-vis its peers at the time, but certainly of high quality. I dug out my notes on a seven-year old Calera from a wine dinner on February 3rd, 2001:

1994 Calera Pinot Noir, Selleck
Very good concentration of raspberries and cassis. Structured by nice, ripe tannins. Nice wine…etc, etc.

A fine showing by a seven-year old California Pinot Noir being that most are made in a more fashionable, drink-me-know fashion.

It was right around this time give or take a year or maybe a few months, that Josh Jensen of Calera came out with his now (in)famous newsletter of new releases wherein he explained that the he was rasing the price of Calera’s single vineyard offering from $55 to $80 per bottle in order to keep his prices even with other top Pinot Noirs from California. Everyone in the wine business walked around with the same type of buzz that many of us had Tuesday morning as we saw months of growth in our 401(k)’s vanish (okay, perhaps I’m being a bit melodramatic, but you get the point). Not long thereafter, although quality has never waned, Calera dropped off the radar quite a bit.

So, during my recent “random walk” it was fitting that I saw Calera Selleck vineyard waiting for me on the shelf. After a period of time where Calera Pinot Noir was overpriced, the Calera stable has experienced a “market correction” and has returned to $55 dollars a bottle, right back where it was about seven years ago. I had visions of Jim Cramer in my head (“Buy!Buy!Buy!”) and picked up a bottle to enjoy with a steak that evening. Admittedly, I enjoyed every last sip.

[Bruce Springsteen's Glory Days plays in the background. Fade.]