Drinking Now
by Leslie-Ann Sheppard
owner of The Cellar on Surfside Road.
With literally thousands of wines available to me as a wholesale buyer, it behooves me to be an educated consumer. This means paying attention to vintage reports from the wine regions of the world, staying current with my professional reading, and (sigh) tasting lots and lots of wine.
Sometimes the tastings can be tedious, as salespeople from the various distributors shark around the island with their samples day after day, week after week. And sometimes they are eye-opening, delicious, and informative.
One such great tasting happened last week. I was invited to lunch at The Galley, on a beautiful summer Wednesday, complete with nineteen French wines, eight other wine buyers, a saleswoman, and our teacher—the very educated Michael Kane of Rosenthal Wine Merchants, an importing company based in New York. Michael presents his wines several times a year to his Nantucket audience, and though it is guaranteed to take at least three hours out of a busy day, I always make time for him because the wines are great and I learn so much.
We tasted flights of wine, regionally. Provence served as our ‘bookends,’ starting as our intro, leading the way through Loire and Burgundy whites before getting into the reds from Beaujolais, the Loire, Burgundy and then back to Provence. Tasting wines with other people who are into wine and with delicious food is a great way to learn about wine. Not only did we take a virtual trip through much of France, but we also journeyed through vintages. This was very important to me as a buyer—to see how wines from 2004 through 2009 are tasting now.
Which addresses probably the most pertinent question on my clients’ minds. This year, by and large, people want wine to drink now. The recession seems to have redefined wine drinkers’ preferences and buying choices; they are not looking for wine to age in their cellars. If they have a wine cellar, it is either already full from buying wine in previous years or it’s empty from drinking their really good wine in the past year or two (and not buying it during those lean years). In either case, people want to buy wine now and drink it now. Wine consumers who do not own a personal cellar also buy wine this way. Lessons from the past year or two have taught us that tomorrow is uncertain; we should enjoy each day as it comes.
So which wines are drinking now?
The wine tasting luncheon focused on French wines, as they are proportionally a very large and important part of our trade. Though we didn’t travel back further than 6 vintages, and though it wouldn’t be wise to make a sweeping generalization about a vintage from trying just 2 wines from a given region and vintage, our tasting led into discussions and general impressions of region and vintage.
The 2004 vintage in Burgundy was a challenging one for some producers. It began as a prolific crop, with vines producing an abundance of buds after a small 2003 crop affected by heat waves. But the weather was tricky in ’04, with conditions providing mold habitat, then frequent rains and even hail. As with any vintage, though, the best growers compensated for the weather and their finished wines were wines of finesse and good acidity, if not muscle and concentrated fruit. But this is classic Burgundy— it is not about power and fruit bombs.
Our tasting featured a Chassagne-Montrachet blanc ‘Les Chaumes’ from Domain Jean-Marc Pillot and a Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru ‘Lavaux Saint Jacques’ from Domain Harman-Geoffroy. The white showed very rich, with plentiful nutmeg and brown spice: good for a palate that enjoys very ripe flavors, but a bit funky for me and some of the other tasters. I think it would be wiser to find whites that are at least premier cru if not grand cru from this vintage in Burgundy. The red showed much better, with classic Gevrey pedigree: a little bit of ‘animal’ plenty of ‘earth,’ and a bit of spice. Acidity was balanced and the wine worked well with the cheese plate in front of us.
2005 is a much trumpeted vintage throughout France. Bordeaux and Burgundy in particular enjoyed ‘easy’ vintages—where everything went right and there was very little intervention required by vineyard hands and winemakers. It is an age-able vintage, and now in 2010, many of the wines are drinking very well now, but they will also hold up for many years to come.
Our 2005 tasting included a white Burgundy and a red Provencal wine. The white, a Meursault ‘Le Clos de Tavaux’ from Domaine Francois Gaunoux was gorgeous with the Galley’s flounder, thyme roasted potatoes, and caper berries. The chardonnay fruit was still a bit lean with crisp notes of granny smith apple and pear. The Chateau Simone ‘Palette Rouge’ from Provence was full bodied with extracted black cherry and blackberry fruit. Opinions were shared and agreed upon that 2005 is another vintage that is ready to drink, but the best bottlings are still a bit young.
‘Seductive’ is a word often applied to the 2006 vintage. Vintners had to work hard to deal with the challenging weather in Burgundy, but their end result, across both white and red, was rewarded. Whites overall are supple and fresh, perfect for now. Reds have less acidity than 2004 or 2005, so are not meant for aging, but are quite lovely for drinking. We tasted a Chablis from Domaine Dauvissat, and a delicious Loire red- a Sancerre rouge from Lucien Crochet. Cherries leapt out of the glass. With a slight chill, this would be a perfect red for those of us who love French pinot noir- all summer long.
Next up was 2007. I was eager for the tasting and for the conversation, since many of the red Burgundy ‘07s are new to the market. I was in France, in the Rhone and in Burgundy, in April of 2008, and tasted many 2007 wines out of barrel with winemakers. I remember that many of them talked about the citrus quality of the whites that year, and I think this still comes through. Some are a bit lime accented. The reds, on the other hand, did very well. Both from the Rhone Valley and from Burgundy, 2007 reds are exceptionally pleasant right now. Go for village level Burgundy from high quality producers such as Domaine Jerome Chezeaux, whose Vosne Romanee was featured at our luncheon (both the village level and the 1er Cru ‘Les Chaumes’), if you want a fragrant, fruit forward, ‘easy drinking’ Pinot Noir. Choose a Chateauneuf du Pape, Gigondas, or Cotes du Rhone from 2007 if you want something a little jammier, and altogether delicious for drinking right now.
The 2008 and 2009 vintages had us tasting a few whites—Provence, Loire, and Burgundy—a delicious cru Beaujolais from Domaine Granger, and a rosé from Provence. By the nature of these types of wines, they are meant for drinking now. Burgundies from the Macon such as Pouilly Fuisse or Macon Solutre are more ‘everydayer’ chardonnay. The Anjou Blanc from Loire’s Domaine Soucherie provided us with a go-to less expensive alternative to Sancerre with its dry and crisp style. The rosé from Chateau Pradeaux in Bandol was a lovely aperitif, but could have also carried us from start to finish through our meal with its versatility.
A beautiful and informative tasting was a fine way to spend three hours on a Wednesday summer afternoon. I know what I want to drink now and how to advise my clients to do the same for this so far gorgeous summer.
