From a Chablis Vaudesir to a good village cru Macon to the $13 pinot grigio recently recommended to me in my local wine store, there's nothing I love more than a wine with a great mineral cut. And I think (or at least like to think) that I can and do differentiate between different minerally tastes. On the other hand, I've never gone in for the "list all the fruits you can think of" approach to describing various fruit flavors in wine. That's always seemed silly and reductionist to me. I justify the dichotomy on the ground that, when talking about different minerals, there's something real there--grand cru chablis is actually grown in soil from kimmeridgian limestone, and that's what I'm tasting. On the other hand, grapes are not actually grown out of boysenberries, huckleberries, or whatever other fruit happens to spring to mind at the moment a taster wants to describe the fruit flavors in the wine he's drinking.
That's why I was temporarily disheartened to read in Eric Asimov's post on Friday that a recent NYT magazine article "refutes the most literal meaning of terroir – that grape vines can somehow transmit the mineral components of the vineyard soil directly into a wine." Asimov adds that "Of course [one does not literally taste granite in the glass], just as you’re not literally tasting road tar and violets in a Barolo, or gooseberries and cat urine in a New Zealand sauvignon blanc, to take a few common wine descriptions." He then goes on to defend wine lovers' appreciating the aromatic and flavor experience of drinking wine despite the lack of scientific evidence behind them.
I entirely agree with the latter part of Asimov's post, and I think he does a great job of expressing why we shouldn't allow science to undermine our appreciation of the beautiful flavors and aromas that wine evokes. But, on reflection, I think he gives up too much to the scientists when he concedes that we're not actually tasting the kimmeridgian limestone in that Chablis Vaudesir. Certainly, large chunks of limestone are not being incorporated into chardonnay grapes just because they were grown in the soil. As McGee and Patterson point out in that Times magazine article, the vines are soaking up rock particles dissolved into the soil. They read that to mean that the grapes are not incorporating the actual limestone, and so when we think we smell or taste limestone in the glass, we cannot actually be doing so. The problem with this logic is not that it misunderstands how rock is incorporated into Chablis, but rather that it misunderstands how we experience limestone in other contexts. When we say that Chablis flavors remind us of limestone, we're not comparing those flavors to the experience of biting off a chunk of rock. Rather, we're comparing them to the smell of limestone, in other words to the experience of those limestone minerals that dissolve in water and/or evaporate and/or decompose into dirt so that we can smell them--which are the same ones soaked up by vines.
I'm not a scientist, so perhaps the above is totally wrong-headed. But it makes sense to me. And I just can't believe the notion that soil qualities have nothing to do with how a wine tastes. There's just too much empirical evidence. Wines from different places taste so different. Admittedly, other factors such as climate, local practice and culture, etc. play a huge role and are obstacles to duplication. But I'm sure there is somewhere else in this world with similar climate conditions to Chablis, and if you could make a wine taste like Vaudesir in that somewhere else, people would be doing it by now.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
On Minerality
Kosta Browne: An Unworthy Cult
Kosta Browne is one of the latest California wineries to achieve so-called "cult" status among wine collectors. The boutique Sebastopol producer of pinot noir has followed the now familiar formula of limited production, single-vineyard designation, mailing distribution (and the resultant waiting list), and strong word of mouth to develop a fiercely loyal fan base as well as hype verging on hysterics. Throw in Jim Laube's stratospheric scores for the 2004 vintage in Wine Spectator (six wines between 95 and 98 points), and a cult wine is born -- complete with eye-popping prices on the secondary market.
So are these wines worth the hype (and high prices)? For me, the answer is a resounding no -- though after tasting through two of their 2004 offerings, I think I can understand the hysteria. Kosta Browne aims to produce ultra ripe, highly concentrated, fruit-powered wines (with resulting alcohol levels pushing and exceedingly 15%) that have resonated with a younger generation of pinot lovers. These are wine drinkers who have come to pinot noir not from Burgundy, but from California cabernet and other New World wines. And as Joe Davis of Arcadian has observed, they have found in this fruit-driven style of California pinot a new delivery system for their favored hedonistic qualities. Yet what I found in the glass tasting these wines from Kosta Browne was a perversion of pinot noir -- thick, syrupy wines that, while boasting an impressive array of exuberant fruit flavors, offer little complexity and sustained drinking pleasure and ultimately prove quite tiresome to consume.
I recently drank the 2004 Kosta Browne Pinot Noir - Russian River Valley (15.2% alc., WS 96) over dinner at Palena, and it, not surprisingly, overwhelmed even the heartier courses on the menu. The nose was ripe and expressive of dark cherry and cola, with noticeable alcohol, yet nevertheless had what Michael Broadbent has called the unique "Pinot grape aroma." On the palate, the wine was sappy and rich, dominated by sweet, concentrated fruit. It boasted a plush, opulent mouth feel, but the wine was weighed down by a heaviness that became wearying as the evening progressed and gave it an increasingly monolithic quality. To be fair, the wine had commendable structure that held it all together until the disjointed finish, when the alcoholic heat back came to the fore. I had trouble finishing my half of the bottle, not from the alcohol, but from palate fatigue -- it was just too syrupy to enjoy with the meal and offered little complexity and evolution in the glass to sustain my interest over the evening.
I tasted the 2004 Kosta Browne Pinot Noir - Sonoma Coast (14.7% alc., WS 95) last winter and the wine, I suspect, was in a closed phase. It was dominated by sweet red cherry fruit and noticeable heat on the palate but after the first glass yielded little more than the outlines of the big, underlying raw material. I shall reserve final judgment until I taste it again next year, but I hold out hope that the brighter red fruits will render it sleeker than the RRV.
Ironically, my favorite wine from the Kosta Browne stable was their least ambitious -- the 2005 Rose of Pinot Noir - Russian River Valley. It is the perfect wine for summer sipping, elegant and refreshing, with lovely strawberry and cream flavors. It is a shame I could only beg one bottle of this offering from the winery and would gladly trade in my remaining bottles of the RRV and SC for more of the Rose.
I understand, and even subscribe to, Parker's mantra that wine is a beverage of pleasure, and I appreciate a sense of fun and play in my wines when done right -- like the Kosta Browne Rose. But I cannot understand the cultish desire for the ripest fruit, higher levels of extraction and concentration, greater intensity of flavors, and more sheer power in pinot noir when these qualities are so far removed from the historic strengths of the varietal. If you love New World wine and want these qualities, go chase Screaming Eagle or Hillside Select -- superlative wines deserving of their cult status. But please leave Pinot Noir alone.