In their latest column for the Washington Post, Page & Dornenburg extol the virtues of a very popular -- and increasingly dogmatic -- food and wine pairing: wild salmon and New World pinot noir. The pairing brings together two important trends in the American culinary scene -- the greater availability of fresh, wild Alaskan salmon in the continental U.S. and the wild popularity of all things pinot. The writers quote Doug Mohr, sommelier at Vidalia, who offers the party line: "If you think 'salmon,' you automatically think Pacific Northwest -- and Oregon pinot noir with wild salmon is symbiotic. Wild salmon eat a diet of shellfish, which translates into their meat being sweet -- which plays off the natural cherrylike sweetness of Oregon pinot noir."
With all due respect to Mr. Mohr -- whom I've had the pleasure of meeting and who is one of the finest sommeliers in D.C. -- I have to disagree. I've always found the inherent "cherrylike sweetness" of New World pinot -- whether from Oregon, or California, or New Zealand -- to be cloying, rather than symbiotic, when paired with the richness of wild Alaskan salmon. A recent tasting of Copper River King salmon (ordered fresh from a Seattle fishmonger and simply grilled) confirmed for my palate the unhappiness of this pairing. Unlike the magical union of foie gras and Sauternes -- where sweetness enhances sweetness -- the pairing of salmon and New World pinot is a profound mismatch, with sweetness overwhelming sweetness. Salmon cries out for something more savory, something more minerally.
I'm reminded of the words of Pierre-Antoine Rovani -- Parker's longtime collaborator at the Wine Advocate -- who once observed: "As much as it's politically incorrect to say it, I believe that nobody would sing the virtues of matching Pinot and salmon if Pinot Noir had never been planted in Oregon." Rovani prefers Chardonnay with his salmon and delineates his preferences as follows: "Grilled, with the fatty skin charred into a bacon-like state, calls for a big buttery California Chardonnay. Grilled lightly calls for a Kistler-like bottle. A delicate preparation (like Troisgros's Salmon with Sorel) calls for a white burg from a not-too-rich year, poached with a cream-based sauce calls for a richer burg." I could not agree more, and only wish I had that range of choice in my personal cellar.
So if anyone happens to have, oh, I don't know, a great Montrachet they're willing to share, I'll order up some Yukon River King fillets before the season closes, and we'll have ourselves a proper meal.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Salmon & Pinot
Friday, May 18, 2007
On Vintage 2005: "Perfection ... doesn't have much character"
Reading through Fiona Morrison's profile of Chambolle-Musigny, I was struck by the comments of leading producer Frédéric Mugnier on the 2005 Burgundy vintage: "There is something perfect about it but also something bothersome -- perfection almost doesn't have much character -- it needs aging to give it more character."
As Morrison reports in her October 2006 article for Wine & Spirits (a must-read; PDF file here), for Mugnier, "2004 is more intriguing; he finds the essence of Chambolle in the best wines." In contrast to the forgivingly perfect weather conditions in 2005, "2004 did not allow for errors, as it was riddled with traps such as risk of rot, disease and the temptation of excessively high yields."
It is not surprising that a producer of Mugnier's skill would find 2004 more interesting. 2004 was a winemaker's vintage, rewarding those with the most rigorous methods and highest standards of vinification while punishing lesser producers with under-ripe, austere wines. Reading through numerous producers' notes for 2005, I almost found a sense of boredom as they recited the same litany of vintage characteristics -- optimum weather, ample time for harvest, perfectly ripe, clean fruit with little, if any, sorting needed. Bruno Clair confessed that during the growing season, he had "nothing to do."
Yet it is interesting to juxtapose Mugnier's near disdain of "perfection," and his embrace of the challenges of a difficult vintage, with his professed non-interventionist approach to winemaking. "I'm wary of enology," Mugnier tells Morrison, and on his website states that "processes that traumatise the wine – over extraction, for example, or excessive woodiness – are limited to a minimum."
It becomes clear, then, that for Mugnier, the vigernon's work rests more in the vineyard than in the cellar. Tending the vines as a farmer -- with treatments against rot or pruning to reduce yields -- is the paramount work. Once the grapes are harvested and sorted, the "goal is to preserve the inherent quality of the grapes and not fiddle with them too much," as Morrison puts it. That is, to bring out the distinctive character of the vintage and the vineyard rather than achieve a certain generic standard of ripeness or concentration through interventionist techniques.
It also becomes clear what Mugnier means by perfection being "bothersome" and lacking "character." Young wines made from perfectly ripe fruit tend to lack transparency -- that is, they don't yield the distinctive characteristics of a particular vineyard, which are initially overwhelmed by blanket fruitiness. The "essence of Chambolle" is muted. Yet it is this quality of transparency -- "the ability to transmit clearly the underlying terroir," as Allen Meadows puts it -- that traditional Burgundy lovers prize most in their favorite wines.
Now Meadows is optimistic that the underlying terroir will shine through in these wines with age, but it may take twelve, fifteen, or twenty years for the very best '05s to reveal their distinctiveness and their greatness. People coming into Burgundy for the first time with the '05 vintage ought to know they have a long wait ahead of them. I shudder to think at the inevitable acts of infanticide that will be committed by those weaned on California pinot. Perhaps point chasers, if it is instant gratification that they desire, ought to follow Freddy Mugnier's advice and seek out wines from those many imperfect vintages.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Burghound and the Market
I certainly agree with Jeffrey's post below that there is more good-will and appreciation felt by wine collectors toward Allen Meadows, the Burghound, than toward other critics like Parker or Jim Laube. Yet I have seen signs in recent weeks of a growing frustration with Burghound's role in stimulating unprecedented demand and setting the market for what many collectors will be a very expensive 2005 Burgundy campaign.
Meadows comes in for criticism not for the wines he chooses to rate highly but rather for rating wines in the first place and, more fairly, for the timing of his reviews. Burgundy collectors are obsessive and intensively secretive by nature. They are reluctant to share the sources of their highly sought-after allocations and sometimes even the identities of their favorites for fear of losing out or being priced out. Meadows, many feel, has let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, pointing the way for novices toward hidden gems and undervalued treasures previously known only to insiders. And certainly, the timing of his reviews could not have been worse, as his 2005 Cote de Nuits issue -- "quite simply the best top to bottom vintage I have ever seen, period, full stop" -- came out well before most of the wines reviewed were even offered for sale in the U.S. Given the estimated 20% ex cellar price increase over 2004, we certainly know who in the supply change is gouging the American consumer.
Meadows reportedly sold more single issues of his Cote de Nuits report than all of the previous Burghound issues combined and is said to be concerned over the role he has played in the unprecedentedly stratospheric '05 Burgundy pricing. This Parker-esque market domination is uncharted territory for Burgundy, as The Wine Advocate's longtime Burgundy reviewer, Pierre-Antoine Rovani, generally favored the region's ripest wines and vintages while the traditional Burgundy consumer has favored elegance, balance, and finesse -- all of the qualities dear to Meadows. To cite just two examples of Meadows' influence: on the day Meadows' Cote de Beaune report was released, Bouchard's Le Corton (AM 93-95) sold out at Premier Cru for $89.95 and reappeared the next day at $109.95; Angerville's Volnay "Champans" (AM 93-95) had a one-day jump from $95.00 to $110.00 at Zachys.
Yet while rising prices are an inevitability, particularly with all the hysteria surrounding this unique vintage, I don't believe Burgundy will be subject to the same efficient market forces as Bordeaux. The far smaller production volume and the allocation system mean that Burgundy just cannot be bought and traded in the same way classified Bordeaux is. Moreover, there is a far healthier attitude toward wine in Burgundy, where it is treated as an artisanal product vinified by farmers rather than commodities produced by millionaire Chateau owners and sold by greedy negociants. And in the meantime, Burghound's growing influence can only bring about improvements in the region, as producers gravitate toward the more elegant and balanced style that Meadows favors -- and has long proven to be the hallmark of the very best Pinot Noir.
Scoring in Burgundy
Robert Parker takes a lot of flak for publishing wine scores. But others do it too, including Wine Spectator and the International Wine Cellar. Because they are far less influential, those magazines don't receive the same amount of public criticism that Parker does, although I suspect that the vast majority of Parker's critics don't have an especially high opinion of Shanken or Tanzer (the publishers of Wine Spectator and IWC, respectively).
By comparison, Allen Meadows is beginning to have an effect on the market for Burgundy similar to that Parker has on the market for Bordeaux. His publication, Burghound, is rapidly becoming the go-to resource for Burgundy enthusiasts and, upon release of his quarterly reports, highly-rated wines sell-out rapidly.
Yet, Meadows does not come in for the same criticism that Parker does. And he is rating wines whose enthusiasts are most likely to be Parker critics. Red Burgundy is famously elegant and reserved rather than forward and fruity; Parker is well-known for giving relatively poor ratings to what most Burgundy lovers consider great wines; and those Burgundy lovers are well-known for claiming that Parker just "doesn't get" the region's wines. Burgundy enthusiasts celebrate the individuality of each wine and the particular characteristics of of the many specific vineyards into which Burgundy's wine regions are subdivided.
So why the appreciation for Meadows? He's doing precisely the same thing as Parker: providing reductionist tasting notes and numerical scores for hundreds of wines. And most Burgundy lovers make their case for the region's wine precisely because it does not lend itself to that approach. Each wine is unique, with its own characteristics, and not susceptible to ordinal ranking on some absolute scale.
Perhaps what makes Meadows palatable is that he has the "right" attitude toward wine and Burgundy in particular. Every issue of Burghound comes with a disclaimer that "Burgundies that emphasize purity, elegance, overall balance and a clear expression of the underlying terroir are rated more highly . . . a Volnay should taste like a Volnay." In other words, unlike Parker, Meadows is not giving high ratings to the sort of wines that Parker critics disapprove of. And that's something. But ultimately why should it let him off the hook? The scoring/tasting note system is objectionable and that's what Meadows provides. As a Burghound subscriber (thanks to the market forces I discussed in my previous post) I often ask myself this.
