The Wine Savant: A Guide to the New Wine Culture (20 page)

We think of excessive heat, and the drought conditions that often accompany it, as detrimental to the production of wines, and generally speaking, that's true—the grapes tend to be overripe, if not sunburned, and they can be woefully deficient in acidity. Yet many of the most acclaimed wines of the last century were products of blistering hot years. While 1947 was a particularly extreme case, 1959 and 1961 were also scorchers and likewise yielded a number of now canonical wines, not only in Bordeaux but in Burgundy, the Rhône Valley, and Champagne, too. One shouldn't conclude from these examples that extreme weather is
necessary
to produce truly epic wines, because that just isn't so; plenty of legendary wines have been made under “normal” conditions, too. The key point: it is very difficult to generalize about wine, which is part of the pleasure.

The only reason I've been able to taste wines like the ' 47 Cheval Blanc is that I am a wine writer; it's one of the perks of the job. But thirty or forty years ago I would have been able to taste most of them on my own dime; they were not inexpensive, but they were still affordable even for plebes like me. That is no longer the case. Over the past fifteen years or so, legendary wines such as these have exploded in value; the ' 47 Cheval Blanc, for instance, now sells for around $10,000 a bottle. With the kind of wealth that has been created worldwide over the past few decades, it was surely inevitable that prices for the rarest and most coveted wines would soar, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. It frustrates me as a wine enthusiast, but it also frustrates me as a wine writer. I would love to see more people have an opportunity to taste these wines, and I find it very unfortunate that too often such gems end up in the hands of people who are more interested in showing them off than in actually consuming them (that's the problem with wealth—it is so often wasted on the wealthy).

So short of becoming a wine writer or making, inheriting, or stealing a fortune, what is a wine enthusiast who is eager to taste the most acclaimed wines to do? There are a few possibilities.

1.
Attend a tasting of rare wines.
In New York, for instance, Acker Merrall & Condit, a retailer and auction house, holds lots of tastings throughout the year, and these typically feature special wines. A company called Executive Wine Seminars also puts on some fantastic tastings in New York. If you want to experience amazing Burgundies, New York sommelier extraordinaire Daniel Johnnes organizes an annual event called La Paulée; it alternates between New York and San Francisco and is attended by many of Burgundy's finest producers. A number of events are held as part of the Paulée, and while the Paulée is not cheap, it is a great opportunity to experience rare Burgundies. A lot of fine Pinots, Burgundies and otherwise, are likewise uncorked at the International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC), which is held each summer in Oregon.

2.
Organize a tasting of your own.
If you have a tasting group, pool your money and buy a special bottle—a Bordeaux first growth from a good year, or a
grand cru
Burgundy with some age on it. If you don't have a tasting group per se but have some wine-besotted friends who are game to take part, you can pool resources with them to buy a rare bottle.

3.
Visit an acclaimed winery.
While some venerated wineries aren't open to visitors or are very sparing with appointments, others do welcome the general public. California's Ridge Vineyards, for instance, has two tasting rooms, one in the Santa Cruz Mountains and one in Sonoma, and both are open weekdays and weekends. While you may not get to taste any really old wines during such visits (though you could get lucky), you will get to taste current releases, and that's a treat in its own right.

M
ADEIRA:
T
HE
C
AUTIONARY
T
ALE

Two hundred years ago, the most prestigious wine on the American market was Madeira, the fortified wine produced on the Portuguese island of the same name. Madeira was a favorite tipple of Thomas Jefferson and his fellow founders; it was supposedly even used to toast the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was a wine that traveled unusually well. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the island of Madeira was a popular port of call for ships traveling to Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Before leaving, the boats were loaded with casks of the local wine, which was usually a blend of several grapes: Verdelho, Sercial, Bual, Malvasia (also known as Malmsey), and Terrantez. So that the wines could better withstand the long journeys, they were topped up with sugarcane brandy or a grape spirit, a step known as fortification. It turned out, though, that being stored in the warm hulls of ships and bounced around on the waves actually benefited the wines, producing smoother, more refined flavors. For a time, barrels of Madeira were sent out on round-trip journeys solely for that purpose. However, most Madeiras were ushered to maturity either by artificially heating the casks or by storing them in warm rooms. Among its many virtues, Madeira is surely the world's most durable wine, which explains why bottles from the nineteenth and even eighteenth century are still drinking beautifully. A few years ago I tasted a 1795 Terrantez, which was glorious; the fact that it was produced when George Washington was president was mind-boggling, and humbling.

But Madeira wasn't resilient enough to withstand the series of blows that it suffered starting in the late nineteenth century, when a combination of natural disasters (disease in the vineyards) and man-made disasters (the Russian Revolution, Prohibition in the United States) conspired to diminish both supply and demand. What had been a king among wines became a complete obscurity—it was the Joe Piscopo of wines, you could say. In the past few years there has been a revival of interest in Madeira (and rightly so—the good ones are superb), but it will surely never regain the luster that it once had.

Reflecting on Madeira's sad fate, one can't help but wonder if any of the prestigious wines of our era might suffer a similar reversal. For reasons I have discussed, it may already be happening with Bordeaux. In the United States, at least, retailers, sommeliers, and consumers have all soured on Bordeaux in recent years, turned off by the extortionate prices and a feeling that Bordeaux has lost its soul. This may be only a temporary backlash, but here's the danger for Bordeaux: because the prices are generally so high, a new generation of wine drinkers is coming of age with little exposure to Bordeaux. To these twentysomethings and thirtysomethings, Bordeaux is a wine for old rich guys, and they are finding their tasting pleasures—and their Holy Grail wines—elsewhere. Among collectors, Burgundy has already eclipsed Bordeaux, and if enough people simply write off Bordeaux, it will lose its standing as the wine world's touchstone. Top Bordeaux now sell for $1,000 or more per bottle in good vintages; could they one day sell for as little as $30 or $40? That might seem far-fetched, but if you told someone in the late eighteenth century that Madeira would fall into complete obscurity, that would have seemed far-fetched, too.

F
IFTY
S
UGGESTIONS FOR
Y
OUR
B
UCKET
L
IST

• Louis Roederer Cristal Rosé (Champagne)

• Salon Clos du Mesnil (Champagne)

• Jacques Selosse Initial (Champagne)

• Bollinger Vieilles Vignes Françaises (Champagne)

• Château Haut-Brion (Bordeaux—red)

• Château La Mission Haut-Brion (Bordeaux—red)

• Château Margaux (Bordeaux—red)

• Château Lafite (Bordeaux—red)

• Château Latour (Bordeaux—red)

• Château Pétrus (Bordeaux—red)

• Château Lafleur (Bordeaux—red)

• Château Cheval Blanc (Bordeaux—red)

• Château Climens (Bordeaux—white)

• Château d'Yquem (Bordeaux—white)

• Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche (Burgundy—red)

• Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Montrachet (Burgundy—white)

• Domaine Dujac Clos de la Roche (Burgundy—red)

• Domaine Georges Roumier Musigny (Burgundy—red)

• Domaine Mugnier Musigny (Burgundy—red)

• Domaine Leroy Musigny (Burgundy—red)

• Domaine Armand Rousseau Chambertin (Burgundy—red)

• Domaine Marquis d'Angerville Volnay Clos des Ducs (Burgundy—red)

• Domaine J. F. Coche-Dury Corton Charlemagne (Burgundy—white)

• Domaine Leflaive Chevalier-Montrachet (Burgundy—white)

• Domaine Guy Roulot Meursault-Perrières (Burgundy—white)

• Domaine Vincent Dauvissat Chablis Les Preuses (Burgundy—white)

• Domaine François Raveneau Chablis Les Clos (Burgundy—white)

• Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage (northern Rhône—red and white)

• Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape (southern Rhône—red)

• Château Rayas Châteauneuf-du-Pape (southern Rhône—red)

• 
^*
Domaine Huet Vouvray (Loire Valley—white)

• 
^*
Marcel Lapierre Morgon (Beaujolais—red)

• Domaine Trimbach Riesling Clos Ste. Hune (Alsace—white)

• Giuseppe Mascarello Barolo Monprivato (Piedmont—red)

• Giacomo Conterno Barolo Monfortino (Piedmont—red)

• Bruno Giacosa Barolo Falletto di Serralunga (Piedmont—red)

• Montevertine Le Pergole Torte (Tuscany—red)

• Gianfranco Soldera Brunello di Montalcino (Tuscany—red)

• Quintarelli (Italy—red)

• 
^*
J. J. Prüm Riesling (Germany—white)

• 
^*
Dönnhoff Riesling (Germany—white)

• 
^*
Keller Riesling (Germany—white)

• Vega Sicilia (Spain—red)

• 
^*
López de Heredia Rioja (Spain—red)

• Bodegas Tradición Sherry (Spain—white)

• Quinta do Noval Vintage Port (Portugal—red)

• 
^*
Taylor Vintage Port (Portugal—red)

• Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello Cabernet (California—red)

• 
^*
Ridge Vineyards Geyserville (California—red)

• Dominus (California—red)

You will notice that my list leans heavily French. Indeed, thirty-three of the fifty recommended wines are from France. Before you accuse me of being shamelessly biased in favor of French wines, you should know that I wrote a book a few years ago about the decline of French cuisine, a book that included a chapter looking at the woes of the French wine industry. With declining consumption at home and declining market share abroad, French winemakers have had serious problems in the past fifteen years or so, and large chunks of viticultural France are in financial crisis. Nevertheless, France continues to turn out an inordinate share of the world's finest wines. Most of the major grape varieties—Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Grenache, Syrah, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc—still achieve their finest expressions on French soil. Maybe that will change at some point in the future—just as France has lost its culinary hegemony, perhaps it will lose its viticultural hegemony—but for now, the very best French wines remain the yardsticks against which most other wines are measured.