Doktor Weingolb

(MUSIC CREDIT: DJ SHADOW)

This is the first video upload I've ever done on my blog. A fantastic meal matched by an astounding wine were the factors that led me to create it. But it's not a video on the wine or the restaurant per se. Rather, it's a video inspired by them -- these are the scenes that unfolded around me while drinking California's best wine at what must be Southern California's best sidewalk cafe. It's less a gastronomic documentary than it is an interpretation of feeling; less food and wine than twilight mystery developing into the rich, delicious night. It's the Ch Petrogasm of wine video podcasting, if you will.

(By the way, the evocative soundtrack is by California's DJ Shadow, who hails from Davis -- especially suitable since it is the centre of California wine knowledge.)

This comes at a momentous point in time: After I (a) dined at the same restaurant for three consecutive days and (b) finally tasted an American wine that actually made me think seriously about the meaning of the Judgment of Paris.

I can safely say that neither of these things has happened to me before. Until now, I was more of an accidental tourist, never planning to repeatedly return to the same venue while on vacation abroad -- never finding a restaurant with such savvy, yet retaining a keen sense of self (Café Chloe, in San Diego's Gaslamp District, was originally tapped by the inordinately useful Brooklynguy). And also until now, I thought I was the judge on whether I bought New World or Old World wine. Tasting this Napa Valley wine made me think that maybe California was holding all the cards.

So can California cash in on me and make me a repeat player at their table? For a bottle of what I tasted, it's $44.50 in Quebec, and $44.95 in Ontario. In its home state, you'd pay a sommelier some 30-something dollars for a half bottle, which would roughly make the retail price up to $10 cheaper south of the border.

At either pricepoint, this wine is worth it. the wine I am talking about is the Château Montelena Chardonnay Napa Valley 2005. It doesn't just try to be Chablis, it does one better with its own beguiling expressiveness.

But the smart sommelier service I received and the great, truly French approach that Café Chloe demonstrates played their part too, making this a dinner of synergy and total amusement.

Château Montelena Chardonnay Napa Valley 2005

Eyes: As my video suggests, I was taking notes on the Café Chloe sidewalk terrace after dark. The gleaming lights of the San Diego Padres at Petco Park were a feeble twinkle behind Farkas Store Fixtures. No notes on the visuals, sorry.

Nose: Toasty nose. Yeast and brioche with green-tinted fruit.

Mouth: Best of both Worlds? This has a buttery finish on a seriously minerally and citrus-exposed version of Chardonnay. So buttery it seems creamy and sort of oxidized at first (malolactic fermentation?) but it is terrific and worth paying attention to. Strict lines frame a wine with deep, ponderous expression but it's quixotically sharply bracing, with great slaking refreshment. Like the California sea air. Refreshing, but more contemplative than a typical Chablis. And the nice layer of wood or that slight malo hint I get. Dry, lingering, with a balance that makes the the dismount as wonderful as the attack.

Stomach: Café Chloe served me a great dinner plate with loads of local produce, tastefully done and beautifully presented. With the fresh Pacific salmon I had (my first), I was enchanted. Though if I have to honestly say whether tasted more terroir in the fish than in my Chardonnay, I'd single out the drink. While the fish was prepared to perfection, I was let down by (perhaps) overblown promises of Pacific Coast catches, especially the salmon, in this case.

I'd say that salmon's not the ideal match for a clean-lined Chard -- herbed roasted chicken might be the best pairing -- but it didn't matter in the least. The basic building blocks I was given were there. West Coast brilliance!

And my last post said I had to force things in California?

Calistoga, Napa Valley, California, U.S.A. 13.5%.

Without further ado, here now is my review of that Mâcon wine I mentioned in my last post -- the one I picked up last week in New York after reading Eric Asimov's New York Times column, in which he scored it the "best value" of the Mâconnais bunch (see his full Tasting Report here).

Rather than submit to WBW more or less of a rehash of what Eric said, I thought I'd at least do something that Eric couldn't do in the New York Times and drop my pants.

The idea of "Naked Chardonnay" is a suitable one for this special anniversary edition of WBW in which participants are asked strip away the extraneous and get back to basics. This month's theme is a celebration of three years of WBWs and it is hosted by none other than the prodigious Lenn Thompson of Lenndevours, the originator of Wine Blogging Wednesday, or WBW for short. Lenn himself is currently taking a step back and re-jigging some aspects of the monthly WBW event so a theme that takes a similar step back to assess a legendary grape in its most simple and essential expression (which is naked, meaning unoaked or unwooded) follows perfectly.

That's because so many Chardonnays you regularly encounter are heavily oaked these days. Wood can mask the fruit of the Chardonnay grape when not handled carefully. With some of the many cheap and industrial Chard varietals churned out, the grape variety itself is getting more and more maligned, which is unfair.

I turned to Burgundy in France for my Naked Chardonnay -- specifically to Mâcon's Domaine Fichet, which produces under the banner of one of the many localized Mâconnais appellations, Igé.

Most Mâconnais wines are vinified in stainless steel or glass-lined concrete vats for early bottling and consumption within a year or two of the vintage, writes The Oxford Companion to Wine. Furthermore, when I researched this bottle, I found a some useful PDFs on the Internet regarding Mâconnais wine and regarding Domaine Fichet, so apart from my own tasting notes below, I am borrowing liberally.

Domaine Fichet harvests grapes from Château London, just north of Mâcon and east of Cluny to produce wines that are clean and expressive. This cuvée, named after the Château London site, is produced from mature low-yielding vines on the southwest-facing limestone vineyard and is tank-fermented. It was awarded La Coupe Perraton for the best Mâcon-Villages of its vintage. Though oak is sometimes used in Fichet's line of products, it is used judiciously. (Their Vieilles Vignes cuvée comes from vines 60-to-80 years old, and is mainly tank fermented, but sees 20% barrel fermentation, giving it wonderful, intense, creamy, structured and “old-viney” characteristics.)

MY NOTES ON THE FICHET WINE

Domaine Fichet Mâcon-Igé Château London Chardonnay 2005 is exactly the kind of wine that the Oxford suggests. Moreover, big props to Eric's guest Natalie MacLean for signaling out the hazelnut note on the nose. Upon uncorking I only got a sharp but zesty nose. Over time, the nuttiness did develop nicely.

To the eye this Chardonnay had a nice translucent amber colour. (Here's hoping next time it's Naked Merlot or something a little more opaque, i.e. modest.)

To taste this is to get an immediate sense of what strong mouthfeel is in a wine. This Chardonnay is penetrating and intense, wonderfully rich, and it dominates the palate. It's all citrus building to a smooth finish, with a beginning, a middle and an end along the way: From instant refreshment upon contact to buttery and nutty tones to a hint of anise and organic matter on the finish.

Paired with a seasonal meal, its racy, tart and delicious minerality comes to the fore as food flavours invite your tastebuds to note the contrasting elements in the wine. I found that with a fresh garden vegetable pizza, a nice licorice tone was echoed. With a celery and Parmesan cheese salad, the profile was more flowery and stonier.

Overall, a stunning value as Eric claims. Even the $20 (Canadian) that I paid for it is an alright value.

Pierre-Yves & Olivier Fichet, Igé, France. 13%.

Last month, I paraded on these pages twenty bottles of wine that I wanted to select for opening over the holiday period. I didn't come nearly as close as to polishing them off as I had hoped -- merely ten bottles were opened (half of them). My stamina disappoints.

The ones that didn't get uncorked are not "Drink Now" wines. They can wait for the next special occasion and I'm proud of that: If my stamina is weak, my survival skills are stay strong. See the full list of the wines that I am talking about.

I've got some good notes on one of the bottles that was opened early on in the festive season. It's Chablis from 2002. The 2002 vintage was a great one for Burgundy and the cuvées from Chablis that year are particularly notable. The J. Moreau & Fils Chablis 2002 is no exception. If you click on the bottle image, you'll see that the current stocked Moreau cuvée is the 2005. No one might recommend that you wait four to five years to enjoy the 2005, but I was quite pleased with how the 2002 fared so far along in its lifespan.

To the eye it had developed a golden yellow hue. A sweetish aroma wafted out my glass. The aroma was honeyed with flowers and wet stone. Hints of honeysuckle, white flowers, lychee and lemon surfaced too.

On the palate it was luscious. Flinty, with some discreet fruit, turning back to flinty notes on the finish, which was quite long. If admirable acid carried the back-end of this wine, it was definitely the minerality that bound the entire package together. From beginning to end, a great wine.

For food pairings, I would avoid peppery or spicy foods. Even a salmon and spinach mousse rubbed this fine wine the wrong way. It was too brassy for this elegant wine. Stick to dishes done with a deft touch. White fish or meat in a light preparation. An onion tart with lemon and capers or other similar amuse-bouches.

In addition I found this Chablis was nice with Canadian Riopelle cheese, which was a recent award winner in the cheese world, though I didn't know that at the time. Softer cheeses like a goat's cheese would likely be a smart idea too.

La Croix Saint-Joseph, Chablis, France. 12.5%.

I thought it was going to be a long while before I heard Chardonnay get roundly dismissed again. But there Eric was last night, telling me he'll gladly drink "Anything But Chardonnay." Humph. I'll have to remember that next time I'm uncorking my $40 Burgundies.

Little did I know that I had just uncorked a Chardonnay moments before and it was getting socked back in seconds, nicely slaking our thirst in the heat. Domaine de Bellevue Grande Réserve 2004 was the Loire white wine I had picked out when Alder at Vinography organized this month's WBW topic. It was, in fact, Chardonnay. Eighty-percent Chardonnay. Or so some serious googling helped me to discover.

And that's the irony with the ABC campaign. It is such a wide-sweeping generalization that those who trade in its whacked-out wisdom to it are bound to get tripped up by it. Our glasses of Chardonnay were all drained before long, even Eric's. So is it the Chardonnay these ABC types don't like or is it the way Chardonnay is most often produced in the New World? Rhetorical question.

Of course the New World has spawned a backlash against Chardonnay. Google’s even more adept at seeking out answers to this. Just type in new world chardonnay backlash. At our table last night, the results were quite different. No backlash for the Chardonnay of Saint-Pourçain, which comes across totally unlike a buttery oaky Chard would.

TAKE A LOOK AT THE LOIRE

With added Sauvignon and some possible traces of Tressallier, this wine is rather unique. Uniqueness is one of the great aspects of the Loire region. This massive valley reaches out to so many different areas that it features a whopping variety of wines, especially whites.

My Saint-Pourçain selection in particular is a bit of a curiosity in that it’s rather far-flung from the actual valley part of the Loire. To find Saint-Pourçain you need a map of France entire and then look to the very centre of the Hexagon. The area carries a VDQS appellation (Vin Délimité de Qualité Supérieure -- neither a Vin de Pays nor a full-fledged Appellation Controllée). Many wine-producing villages on the fringes of the Loire are given VDQS status and are expected to eventually achieve an AOC someday.

Another odd aspect of Saint-Pourçain is that it used to be big. Big like Bordeaux. But that was way back in the middle ages, which is an old part of the Old World that most European wineries are wise not to emphasize. Nevertheless, Saint-Pourçain labels often capture some of that Medieval cred (which may be oxymoron considering how vile those wines must’ve actually have tasted then). Credibility aside, the quaint lettering and out-of-time coat of arms do at least offer a Medieval mystique. I like the label.

In any case, today’s Saint-Pourçain maintains a focus on cool-climate wine production and the regional Tressallier grape often makes a strong contribution in this regard along with Sauvignon.

A TASTE OF THE NOT-SO-OLD OLD WORLD

So how did this Chardonnay taste? Well, many modern Loire whites are using it with their Sauvignon and this bottle could be considered a nice example of the success that regional vintners have found with such a blend.

Here are my notes on the Domaine de Bellevue Grande Réserve 2004 Saint-Pourçain: Pale yellow colour with a nice aromatic intensity. Bread and mineral notes are most strong. On the palate it is grapefruit and a bit grassy. Some other herbal hints come out, especially if you pair it well with food. I'd have this with roasted cauliflower in a scallion butter and caper dressing. Quite dry is this wine, with a lovely lively acidity so it should be pretty amicable with any meal. Also serves to quench your thirst if you are not lucky enough to have any food nearby.

Thanks to Alder for hosting a real refreshing topic this month.

Jean-Louis Pétillat, Meillard, France. 12%

The Santa Rita Medalla Real Chardonnay 2002 is a gorgeous wine. I wonder if this is the best wine I've had for the least money. With beautiful body, strong buttery tones, a delicate balance of sweetness and acidity, the 2002 is marked down from $18.50 to $15.70 (click on bottle above for more details).

It's difficult not to think of Burgundy as the touchstone for Chardonnays. They may not be everyone's cup of tea, (and Lenndevours made a valiant effort last week in defending the varietal) but I guarantee that when you spend upwards of $30 on a white wine of a better-than-average vintage from Burgundy, you'll see why Chardonnay is a stronghold in the wine world. In the right hands at the right time, the Chardonnay grape can make legendary wine. When I compare it to a recently-tasted Bertrand Ambroise Saint-Romain 2001 -- a slightly off vintage in the Côtes de Beaune that was well-handled by a reputable vintner -- this little Chilean bottle has all the makings of truly great Chardonnay. By no means as concentrated or as full-bodied as an Ambroise, you could certainly serve this several degrees colder than a top-notch Bourgogne to highlight the bracing astringency that's there. And there may not be as much luscious Burgundy sweetness in the younger Medalla Real, but there is a hint of it and I would not be surprised to see it age gracefully. Not as deft or as mineral as a Chablis, but not as oaked and overcooked as an industrially-produced New World wine, Chile's entry from the Valle de Casablanca revels in the care that clearly was put into this cuvée. Hand-picked grapes boasted on the back label may be part of the success story. And there's a nod to the Burgundian tradition when the winemaker explains his use of French oak barrels.

What food pairs with this stunning wine value?

It is a must-have with buttery broiled white fish in generously herbal cream sauce. The lush smokiness that comes through via the wood underlines why sometimes stainless steel can be a bit boring. Meatier fish like salmon would work, as would a bold chicken marinade. Red meat might not work as a pairing, but this is a wine that makes you want to give up red meat anyway.

Viña Santa Rita, Casablanca, Chili. 13.5%.

It's remarkable how the right bottle at the right time can do so much for you. I am not talking about careful cellaring or making wise choices during a flight of wines. I'm talking about the thoughtful gestures of others.

Jacob's Creek Shiraz South Eastern Australia 2004 was not what I was planning to open today, let alone post on. After all in the middle of Portuguese week, what could be stranger than an oaked international varietal?

I woke up this morning and it wasn't long before I knew it would be one of those days. The bus driver told me to get out and walk when I didn't have the exact change. It was about a block to the subway, so his unsavoury show of power only meant the loss of my respect rather than the loss of my time. The smug subway car conductor had something to say about that though. The entire green line was down. I would have to seek out another bus to get to work. The fact that I didn't have a proper transfer allowed for some fleeting but mandatory humiliation, which the driver feasted on like a vulture to carrion. At least this time I was let stay on. Could the inconvenience have been worse for him than me, I wondered.

Showing up for work 45 minutes late, it was clear that my lunchhour would not be spent posting my latest installment to Portuguese week. I would have to make up time. That was the least of my worries though. The office today would be a day of stomach-dropping excitation. The kind of day when you don't realize lunch passed two hours ago because events are rocking your cubicle and making food a nauseating prospect.

And then came Danielle.

Stretching her arm out to hand me a generous expression of gratitude, I suddenly realized that when things you don't plan on start happening, they don't always have to turn into nightmares. Having a surprise visit from a colleague like Danielle certainly helps. And hey, so does the gift of a little vino. I hope you like Shiraz, she said, as I pulled the bottle of the bag. You bet. I have a feeling Danielle must've visited Weingolb before.

Some hours later, there still would be no Portuguese wine posted to the blog, no Portuguese wine opened and on the table. But who cares? The Shiraz was uncorked and decanted, and Gordon was grilling chicken in a skillet. While long grain rice slowly and aromatically steamed in the cooker, florets of broccoli readied themselves for a quick blanching. We were drinking Penfold's Koonunga Hill Chardonnay. Oaked chard and a slice of gruyère on toast -- how many time zones had I crossed to reach this oasis?

And it got even better. In a brilliant manoeuver, Gordon emptied the remaining white wine into the pan to create a mustardy dressing that he poured over the risotto-like rice, flecked with green onions, and the broccoli. Dinner looked stunning, as always. Gordon is such a great cook. Eric joined us and Danielle's Shiraz was poured into glasses...

A beguiling aroma of garrigue, black cherry and bay leaf. It tasted totally unlike the smell though. Baked plum, anise, wood chips and a slightly viscous cola finish. Gordon pointed out the cola and hints of vanilla. Medium to full body, and tremendously smooth. This Shiraz is convincingly textured by well-integrated, well-ripened fruit.

Thanks for the pick-me-up Danielle: Down time should always feel this good.

Today's originally scheduled post, and the start of the second half of Portuguese week, will appear here tomorrow.