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The words "Enoteca" means that the year 1993 was knighted after 7 years by Richard Geoffroy, the head of cellars of Dom Perignon, and kept close to his brilliant murmur a few years. Revealed to the world in the [...]

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If you have more than a passing interest in wine, you’ve no doubt heard some form of this common complaint: wine critic Robert Parker’s palate, with it’s emphasis for ‘hedonistic fruit bombs,’ has ruined the wine world, because now everyone makes (unappealing/monstrous/one-dimensional/sweet/spoofulated/choose-your-adjective) wines that taste the same and have the singular goal of a high point score from Parker.

I have long maintained that this “sky is falling” point of view (perhaps best typified by the irresponsible polemic, Mondovino) and in particular the demonization of Robert Parker’s palate as monolithic represents a sort of irrational fanaticism with little basis in reality.

My observations, for as long as I have been following the world of wine criticism, have led me to believe that, contrary to the whining and accusations of many, most of the world’s top wine critics tend to completely agree with Parker when it comes to most of the top wines of the world.

And now there’s actually been a study that seems to bolster my anecdotal convictions. Conducted by the Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell University, this recently released study was commissioned to examine the hypothesis that the ordered ranking of Bordeaux Chateaux into First Growths, Second Growths, etc. that has been in place since 1855 may no longer be truly accurate. In the process of testing this hypothesis, the researchers have produced the only statistical analysis I have ever seen that compares the rankings of major wine critics across similar wines. And while it was not the purpose of their research, their findings on the correlation of scores between The Wine Spectator, Robert Parker, and Stephen Tanzer are quite remarkable.

In short: these three sources are in near complete agreement on which wines are the best, and they have been for three decades. This result utterly refutes the idea that somehow Parker’s “skewed” palate has driven the wine market to a place that it would not have otherwise gone on its own.

Here’s one of the charts from the report that pretty much says it all (click to enlarge):

This graphic shows the ratings for nearly 50 of the top wines of the Medoc region of Bordeaux by these three critical sources. The researchers’ primary findings about these ratings are nicely visualized here, namely that there are incredibly strong correlations between all three raters as to which are the better wines, as well as which wines are relatively better than others, as well as the fact that the differences between these raters are consistent. Parker gives higher ratings (by about one third of a point) than the Spectator, which in turn is about a point higher than Stephen Tanzer. Over 30 years of data, even in the cases where there is significant disagreement between these raters, that disagreement is rarely more than two or three points, maximum.

The only way this study could have proved my suspicions any better is if it had included scores from European critics like Jancis Robinson, Stephen Spurrier, Michael Bettane, and Michael Broadbent.

But luckily enough, there’s a fairly easy way to answer that “what if?”, thanks to a phenomenally useful site called Bordoverview.Com, which lists the scores for several hundred top Bordeaux wines across the past 4 vintages and across a huge range of critics, including Parker, Robinson, Bettane, and the Spectator. A quick pass through the data on that site should be enough to put a nail in the coffin of the myth of the monolithic palate once and for all.

A comparison of the top 20 wines from each of the critics from every vintage since 2004 yields an overlap of more than 60%. I didn’t have the time (or the skill) to grab all the scores and run a regression analysis on them, but I’d bet good money that they’d show the same level of correlation, as well as internal consistency that was found by the Cornell study.

Of course, there will be people who will say, “well, that’s just the top Chateaux of Bordeaux, what about California, or Burgundy, or Italy, or Australia?” It certainly would be great to do this sort of analysis on scores from the critics for all those regions. But the reality is that the majority of wine critics don’t cover all those regions equally. Bordeaux, and the Left Bank in particular, is the ultimate benchmark for wine critics — every major critic covers nearly every one of these wines every year, and these are ostensibly the best wines on the planet if only judged by broad historical market prices and demand.

So let’s just put this one to rest, shall we? If anyone wants to persist in the argument that Robert Parker is ruining wine for the world then they need to answer the following question: how can that possibly be, when the rest of the major wine critics in the world seem to agree with him (nearly wine for wine) and when it appears that some have done so for decades?

I highly recommend you check out the report from Cornell, and that you spend some time playing with Bordoverview.Com.

Oh, and about that 1855 Classification? Looks like it needs a significant overhaul.

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There are those in the wine world who seek out (and often pay for) the best possible advice they can get. Winemaking and winegrowing are sciences as much as they are arts, and these days, there are plenty of experts to be had in both arenas. And then there are those in the wine world that no matter what the scientists, experts, and even their friends say, choose to follow their instincts. Call them pig-headed, call them eccentric, call them iconoclasts, there are certain people that will always walk their own paths when it comes to wine.

Jim Dierberg seems to be one of those people. He’s a man that puts a lot of stock in his intuition. He proposed to his wife on their first date, and the first time he set eyes on a piece of property near Santa Ynez Valley he knew it was where he needed to live and to make wine. And not just any wine. Jim decided that this little plot of land was where he was going to make the Cabernet that he had dreamed of making for years.

Never mind that the idea of making Cabernet Sauvignon in the chilly, fog-influenced Santa Ynez Valley (known, for good reason, for it’s cooler climate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay) was pretty much the most insane idea anyone had heard of for some time. Jim spent nearly ten years fending off his friends and neighbors, all of whom confirmed the insanity oh his plans. In those ten years he methodically planted his vineyards and experimented with rootstocks, built a winery, and (perhaps just to prove that he wasn’t totally bonkers) bought some land in the neighboring Santa Rita Hills and started making excellent Pinot Noir and Chardonnay under the Dierberg Estate and Three Saints labels.

Jim’s faith in his own vision wasn’t easy to shake, perhaps because Jim lived on the property that came to be known as Star Lane Vineyards for those ten years. And he needed little more than a good set of eyes and a thermometer to prove to himself that the tiny little North-South valley where his vineyards climbed up the steep valley walls was a climatological anomaly. At the start of his driveway, several miles away, the mid-summer fog would be thick and the air a chilly sixty degrees Fahrenheit, but out his front door it would be sunny and between 80 and 100 degrees.

Indeed, the Happy Valley, as this little crease in the San Rafael Mountains is named, happens to be both the highest and the hottest place in the entire appellation. Daytime temperatures routinely climb above 100 degrees and nighttime temperatures often fall well below fifty degrees. This wide range of temperature, known as the diurnal shift, is coveted by winemakers for its ability to coax complexity and richness out of grapes of many varieties.

Now, after ten years of work, Jim and his winemaking crew, which includes winemaker Nick DeLuca and consultant David Ramey, are releasing the first vintage from Star Lane, including this wine, which is a special selection from three specific blocks of the vineyard. The vineyards are planted almost exclusively to Bordeaux varietals, with the exception of a little Syrah that is mixed in amongst the Cabernet Sauvignon, and are so steep in places that there is only one guy on Jim’s staff that is willing to drive the tractor between the rows (he apparently keeps asking for a raise on this account).

The vineyard management crew, all of whom are full-time employees rather than hired contractors, pick the grapes in the dead of night to escape the day-time heat, and load them in small batches into the winery (which has been built with two distinct sections, one dedicated to the Dierberg Estate Burgundy-style wines, and the other dedicated to the Star Lane project). The grapes ferment slowly with native yeasts, and are then aged in 100% new French oak barrels for 20 months before bottle aging another 14 months before release. The wines are never filtered and are fined lightly with egg whites before bottling.

Star Lane makes about 1900 cases of this special Cabernet Sauvignon, and about 9000 cases of their estate Cabernet (which is also fantastic).

Santa Ynez Valley, barring some serious effects of Global Warming, will never be known as a place that’s ideal for growing Cabernet Sauvignon, but if Star Lane Vineyards continues to produce blockbuster wines like this one, Santa Ynez Valley may well become known for at least one Cabernet.

Tasting Notes:
Inky garnet in color, this wine bursts out of the glass with a rich nose of earth, tobacco, and dark fruit aromas that had me salivating immediately. In the mouth it is rich, heavy, and pure liquid silk on the tongue, with powerful flavors of black cherry, vanilla, and chocolate mixed with an undertone of dirt. The wine has just the slightest touch of sweetness to it that I eventually decided was a hint of residual sugar, but couldn’t possibly hold against this wine in all its lusciousness. Perhaps it’s best to think of this wine as a monster Napa Cab, that isn’t from Napa. A wine for those times when you’d prefer that your wine not show a little restraint.

Food Pairing:
This is a wine that while perfect for grilled meat, I would simply prefer to drink on its own. It’s big enough to demand all of your attention.

Overall Score: between 9 and 9.5

How Much?: $100

This wine is available for purchase on the internet.

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If you are visiting us for the first time, Welcome! The Wine Spies feature one exceptional wine each day – and we only bring you wines that we ourselves seek out and love. Always, the wines are great. Sometimes greater than great, as is the case with today’s wine from Schweiger Vineyards.

SUPERIOR WINE ALERT!: Today’s Napa Valley Chardonnay is ultra-unique and ultra-delicious. This 100% barrel aged, zero malolactic Chard is a stunner. NO BORING CHARDONNAY here!

ALLOCATION ALERT!: We were only able to get our hands on a small quantity of today’s wine, so please be sure to take advantage – before we run out

SAVINGS ALERT!: Enjoy FREE Ground Shipping with your purchase of 6 or more bottles when you use coupon code: NAPASPY at checkout

Mission Codename: The Bold and the Beautiful

Operative: Agent Red

Objective: Send Agent Red, Wine Spies resident red wine expert, on a mission to taste Schweiger’s Chardonnay of legend. If the wine proves superior, and Agent Red is blown away, Agent Red is ordered to procure a secret cache for our Operatives

Mission Status: Accomplished!

Current Winery: Schweiger Vineyards

Wine Subject: 2006 Chardonnay

Winemaker: Andrew Schweiger

Backgrounder: Wine Spies Agents are category experts. Agent White investigates white wines, Agent Red, the reds. In order to give our agents a well-rounded view of the wine world, they regularly undergo total immersion cross-training – in which an Agent may review a wine outside of their normal realm. Today we send Agent Red in search of the best Chardonnay that he can find. After exhaustive searching and rigorous tasting, Agent Red finds the perfect Chardonnay. Read his tasting notes and mission report below for full details on this superior wine.

Wine Spies Tasting Profile:

Look – Golden and almost glowing with brilliant highlights, perfect glittering clarity with a bouncy surface and medium legs that march steadily down the glass at widely varying speeds

Smell – Gigantic and powerful with a wonderful, fruity and deeply aromatic nose of pineapple, kiwi, pear, and acacia with tropical tones, wet slate (minerals) and subtle oaky vanilla

Feel – Right at the tip of the tongue, the wine is round and velvety – then something interesting happens which is quite unique: the wine grip at the mid-tongue but then become soft as velvet again at the real palate. Around the edges of the tongue and extending to the cheeks and the roof of the mouth, the wine is slightly dry and grippy. This original blend of feels is really fun and quite pleasing and interesting

Taste – Delicious layers of flavor, with prominent green apple, kiwi, mineral and pineapple, the wine also delivers mild oak, citrus and pear with sweet white flowers

Finish – long, lingering with flavors and soft tannins that fall off gradually, moving from sweet to tart and back to sweet again

Conclusion – This is no ordinary Chardonnay. Rather, what you get in this wine is an extraordinarily big and flavorful Chard that won’t bore you with typical bland and butter-laden fare that you may be used to. Winemaker Andrew Schweiger leverages the powerful fruit from his family’s 2000-foot elevation winery and his own special winemaking techniques to create a distinctive wine that expresses powerful flavors – but is never overpowering. If you are bored with Chardonnay or think that Chardonnay is too lighthearted to drink, you’ll be delighted by this wine.

Mission Report:

I was thrilled to be sent on this mission. It had been a while since I had tasted a really exciting white wine and it was time to stretch out the palate.

I got into the Spy Car and headed to Napa Valley, from where Control (our H.Q. for you newer recruits) had been receiving a small number of reports of some really fantastic Chardonnay wines.

It was a gorgeous day in Napa, a time when almost all of the vines are in bloom. This is a magical time, but also one in which growers pray that there will be no rain. This, in order to protect the flowers, their precious pollens and the bees they need in order to spread the love.

Along the days journey, I stopped into a handful of great wineries. My cover was Tourist from Chicago. With my Cubs hat on and my midwestern twang in full effect, like a bee buzzing from vineyard to vineyard, I flitted through the tasting rooms.

While I tasted some really interesting Chards, none blew me away. That is, until my travels took me to what was to be my final stop of the day, Schweiger Vineyards!

At Schweiger Vineyards, fine wine runs through the veins of the Schweiger family, with the second and third generations tending vines and making wines. In 1960, the first generations of Schweigers planted the vineyards on their beautiful estate. Today, 100% of the fruit grown on their estate is used in their wines.

Fred Schweiger, the family patriarch, is as sincere and dedicated a man as I have come across. He is fiercely dedicated to his land, his vines, his wines – and even the people that buy them. Fred affirms that those that buy his wines have an expectation of superior quality, both in terms of wine quality, but also in terms of the care that his winery has for its clients.

While Fred is responsible for the vineyards and, along with his wife, Sally, for customer happiness, the next generation of Schweigers take on different roles. In 1999, Andrew took on the role of winemaker and Diana Schweiger Isdhal manages sales and marketing.

I have found that generational wineries often produce some of the finest wines. In Europe, where winemaking lineage can go back 10 or more generations, this is more the norm. In America, it is more special.

Okay, about the wine…

I won’t mince words about this Chardonnay; It is incredible!

Here are some of the key points to consider:

1. No malolactic fermentation
2. 100% barrel aging, without the wine suffering at all from over-oaking as some wines do
3. Unique 2000 foot elevation vineyards make for great and unique fruit character
4. Chardonnay yields from Schweiger Estate vineyards vary widely, with yields from 60 cases to 1000 or more. 800 were produced in this vintage
5. Schweiger is 1 of only 4 Spring Mt. producers of Chardonnay

This wine is deeply aromatic, with big and bold notes. The mouth feel is terrific, with velvety beginnings and a soft and integrated ending. Flavors are off the charts delicious, but not at all overpowering.

Chardonnay, when its done right, I love it.

Major Spy Kudos to the Schweiger family. This Chardonnay has renewed my faith in white wine!

Wine Spies Vineyard Check:

The location of the exquisite Schweiger Estate Vineyards can be seen in this satellite photo.

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I do not need to tell you that I’m a geek of the first degree when it comes to wine, but you may not know that my interests in the minutiae of life extend beyond the wine world into lots of other areas. When it comes right down to it, I just love knowing how things work. And why.

Which is why I absolutely fell for Harold McGee when I first encountered his book, On Food and Cooking, which might as well have been titled: The Geeks Guide to the Kitchen. McGee took a scientist’s approach to deconstructing most of the chemical and physical processes of the kitchen.

Occasionally McGee turns his attention to the world of wine. Today he published an article summarizing some research on a compound with the lovely name of Rotundone, which is the chemical responsible for, among other things, the peppery taste found in wine. This is not particularly breaking news. I wrote a bit about the discovery and research into Rotundone in wine last year.

What caught my attention about McGee’s article, however, were the adjunct (or perhaps separately researched) findings that everyone perceives Rotundone with different levels of sensitivity, and about 20% of people may not be able to perceive it at all.

That’s right. One out of five people may not be able to perceive one of the signature flavors in tens of thousands of wines from around the world from Australian Shiraz, to Central Coast Syrah, to Cotes du Rhone. And some people who are hyper-sensitive to the compound may think some wines with elevated levels of Rotundone taste downright nasty, while the rest of us may just enjoy the spicy qualities of the same wine.

Research like this makes me giggle. I privately believe that the more research we do, the more we’ll find out that there is quite a lot of variation in the way that people perceive the complex and particular flavors in wine.

I delight in the fact that such random (and/or genetic) physiological variation in what we taste completely undermine the notion that wine tasting is objective, or that some people can be thought of as authorities on how wines taste. Sure there are a few objective measures that can be used to distinguish sound wine from flawed, but if a large portion of the wine drinking public (including some critics) can’t taste something in wine, does it really matter?

Perhaps more realistically, just because I say that a wine smells like bacon-fat and tastes like raspberry-jam does that mean it really does? The answer, it seems to me, increasingly becomes: only if you happen to taste and smell the same things.

So remember that the next time you read a tasting note or a score from a critic. There’s only one way to figure out what you will like, and that is to put it in your mouth. Whether you can trust someone else to help you narrow your choices should be purely a matter of trial and error.

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The wine world increasingly sorts out into two camps, those who believe increasing globalization is good for the wine industry, and those who believe that it ruins everything good about wine. Never mind that it is most certainly happening and impossible to stop. Those who regularly follow my ramblings know that I think globalization is the best thing to happen to wine since someone figured out that stainless steel tanks made for good fermentations.

Leaving aside all the petty and ridiculous arguments about the homogenization of wine, which I think are bollocks, I offer the simplest and most compelling reason that globalization is good for wine:

Slovenia.

The folks in Slovenia have been making wine since even before the region was a part of the Roman empire, of course, but some of the wineries operating today have been in business since the 1500’s. Yet until recently very few people in the United States had even heard of Slovenian wine, let alone tasted any.

Globalization more than anything else means that the market for wine, even ones made in tiny countries, by tiny producers, from slightly obscure grapes have a chance to reach wine lovers all over the world. And if they’re good, they have the chance to reach levels of popularity that would never have been possible based on the local demand of their region, or even neighboring countries. Perhaps the most well known success story of this kind in the region is Movia, whose wines I reviewed yesterday. But Slovenia is much bigger than Movia, and there are a lot of wines worth paying attention to.

Slovenia’s three primary winegrowing regions of Podravje, Primorska, and Posavje are planted to around 60,000 acres of vineyards, representing more than one percent of the nation’s tiny 7,827 square miles of territory. With more than 40,000 registered wineries according to the Oxford Companion to Wine, it’s not hard to believe that the average vineyard size for the country falls somewhere in the 8 to 15 acre zone.

This incredible diversity of producers may partially be responsible for Slovenian wine staying off the radar for so long, as most producers are so small that they wouldn’t have enough wine to sell on the global market even if they could afford to get it there.

Thanks to the work of some dedicated importers and the increasingly global view of many wine lovers, the world is getting more experience with this region and it’s history of producing distinctive wines.

Slovenia was the first republic to declare independence in the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, but before that nation was cobbled together, it sat at a major crossroads in the Hapsburg empire that, in some form or another, ruled the region even before the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire.

Snuggled as it is between the Mediterranean on the Southwest, Italy on the West, Croatia on the Southeast, and the Austrian Alps to the north (beautifully summarized by the country’s coat of arms, seen above), it will come as no surprise that the region’s major influences when it comes to wine are Italian, German and Hungarian with some French sensibility thrown into the mix.

Nothing is a greater influence on Slovenian wine, however, than the extremely variable climate of the region, which can vary to such a great degree that the size of the country’s wine production regularly fluctuates twenty or thirty percentage points from vintage to vintage.

Like most relatively developed indigenous wine regions, Slovenia produces both red and white wines, but in my experience the white wines are by far the best and most interesting, and in some cases are nothing short of world-class. These whites are either made as single varietals or as blends, using a wide variety of techniques, from the more traditional vinification in large, old oak casks, to modern stainless steel winemaking.

Regardless of the methods used, Slovenian winemakers are producing distinctive wines from familiar grapes like Pinot Gris, Riesling, and Sauvignon Blanc; to less well known varieties such as Ribolla Gialla, Malvasia, Traminer, and Sylvaner; to the downright obscure Kerner, Pikolit, Vitovska, Sipon, and Pinela.

It is quite unwise of me to broadly characterize the wines of an entire country, as there are great variations, from the sweet dessert wines of the southeast, to the crisp whites of the western region that falls within the unique extension of Italy’s Collio appellation. However, I will say that I find Slovenian whites to be extremely distinctive, and quite unlike white wines from anywhere else, save some of the producers in Italy’s neighboring Friuli region. The best Slovenian wines, even those with residual sugar, seem to offer amazing combinations of floral, tropical fruit, and more earthy qualities, often with a touch of oxidation that gives them somewhat of an “ancient” quality.

Any wine lover who enjoys white wines I strongly urge to seek out some Slovenian wine and give it a try.

Here are some tasting notes from some of the best Slovenian whites I have had recently.

Full disclosure: I received these wines as press samples.

2003 Kogl M.D. Albus “Magna Domenica” White Wine, Podravje, Slovenia
Pale, greenish gold in color, this blend of Riesling, Yellow Muscat, and Auxerrois has a nose that combines slightly funky aromas of wet wool and wet wood with beautiful scents of white blossoms and ripe melon. In the mouth it tastes of paraffin, pear, and white flowers wrapped around a core of tart melon flavor. The decent (though perhaps not sharp enough for my taste) acidity brings a lightly mineral, even metallic quality to the long, intriguing finish. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $17.00. Where to buy?

2005 Kogl “Mea Culpa” White Wine, Podravje, Slovenia
Greenish gold in the glass, this wine has a gorgeous nose of acacia flowers, juicy peaches, and paraffin, which hints at the Riesling that makes up the majority of the wine. In the mouth the wine is beautifully balanced and offers a gorgeously complex pastiche of chamomile, lemon zest, and mineral qualities that are electrified by excellent acids and textured with silky smoothness. The flavors blend and swirl into a long, satisfying finish. In a word, “yum.” Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $19.99. Where to buy?

1999 Batic Reserve Pinot Gris, Vipava Valley, Slovenia
This wine pours a beautiful medium gold, even slightly orange in the glass. Orange wine is nearly always a good sign! It smells of honey and freshly shelled nuts. The nutty qualities continue into the waxy body of the wine which has a lightly oxidized quality that I find utterly compelling. The nuts and rainwater flavors carry through a long finish that seems to defiantly challenge anyone who says aged Pinot Gris can’t turn into something special if made in the right way. Score: around 9. Cost: $29.95. Where to buy?

2004 Batic Pinot Gris Riserva, Vipava Valley, Slovenia
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wine quite this color before — gorgeously orange-pink in the glass it reads visually more as a rose than a white wine, making me wonder if it didn’t have a period of extended contact with the skins to extract such a hue. It’s nose is equally wondrous - a jewel-like confection of candied apple, red apple skin, and exotic spices. In the mouth it is nicely balanced with good acid and a weighty presence on the tongue that dances flavors of paraffin, red apple skin, and those same hard-to-pin-down spices across the palate. The wine’s finish is unusually short, but despite this deficit, it is most certainly one of the most distinctive wines I have ever had in my mouth. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $26.95. Where to buy?

2004 Santomas Malvasia, Primorje - Koper, Slovenia
Light gold in the glass, this wine smells of melon and honey. In the mouth it seduces with a silky texture and a waxy pear and melon mix of flavors that swirl pleasingly with good acid into a moderate finish. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $16. Where to buy?

2006 Crnko “Rumeni Muskat” Yellow Muscat, Maribor, Slovenia
Pale green-gold in color, this wine has an intoxicating nose of melon, kiwi, and other exotic tropical fruits. It’s hard not to simply want to sit and smell this wine for several minutes. In the mouth, the wine offers bright flavors of sultanas and hints of the melon in the nose. A slightly waxy quality tangos with a light spritz on the tongue as the wine finishes without quite living up to the promise of the nose. This Slovenian rendition of the Austrian “Gelber Muskateller” grape is good for drinking, but even better for smelling. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $21.95. Where to buy?

SEE ALSO: Some of my other Slovenian wine reviews:

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I drink wine from as many different countries as I can, as often as I can. I firmly believe that the only way I keep learning anything as a wine lover will be through continued exploration.

There are times, though, when searching out new countries, grape varieties, and appellations just takes too much energy. At times like these, usually after a long week, I just want a nice meal and a good glass of wine to go with it. Like most people in these situations of part-exhaustion, I tend to stick to the predictable — the least risky choice that is most likely to yield the most pleasurable result.

So when I found myself dining alone the other night, and not wanting to think much about which white wine I wanted, I reached for a safety wine. I had never had it before, but I knew it was: white, a blend of different grapes, French, and it was from Provence.

There aren’t many sure bets in the wine world. There’s a lot of crap out there to be sure. But if you’re gonna order wine, sight unseen and untasted, I think it’s pretty hard to go wrong with most of the wines in the Cotes de Provence. At least the ones that end up getting imported here.

So there I was, sitting alone at the big communal table, watching the chefs do their thing from behind the pass. I was reading some notes I had taken from a meeting earlier in the day, and only barely noticed when the waitress put the glass down by my plate. I reached out between sentences and took a sip, and in the kind of moment that keeps me drinking wine, I was forced to pause, to savor, and to say a silent prayer of thanks for my luck at living a life in which I get to enjoy good things like this glass of wine.

Don’t get me wrong, this wine was not epiphany-creating-stuff-of-the-gods. It was just darn good, and it really hit the spot.

The family that currently owns Chateau du Rouët purchased the property in 1840 with the intention of harvesting cork from the trees on the property, and selling some of the pine wood that was particularly in demand for shipbuilding at the nearby ports of the Mediterranean. The property encompassed more than 1000 acres of forest, as well as the grounds of a sizable manor that was erected by the new owners in 1880.

Around 1920, a fire ravaged the estate, as well as some of the forest, and the current owner decided to plant a vineyard between the scrubby, fire prone hills and the forest of the estate. Though it was only a secondary consideration at the time, this began the history of wine cultivation at the estate.

Today the descendants of the original three families that purchased the property farm approximately 170 acres of vineyards at the foot of a set of hills known as the Gorges de Pennafort that rise with their red volcanic rocks and ancient caves about 1500 feet above the property. The mostly sandstone terraced vineyards are wedged between the flatlands, the hills, and a swath of Mediterranean forest of cedar, bamboo, cork oaks, maritime pines, and even palm trees. The vineyards run mostly north to south to shelter the grapes from the fierce Mistral winds that whip over the hills at certain times of the year. These winds are not all bad, however. Combined with the warmer breezes off the Mediterranean, they combine to create the cool, dry climate that allows the Cotes de Provence to create wines of great personality.

On the grounds of the winery sits a small chapel that is worthy of mention only because of the unusual doors which adorn its modest facade. These doors were taken from a sailing ship named the Le Belle Poule, which at one time was well known for one of its last voyages — a trip it made to carry home the ashes of Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1888, Lucien Savatier, who contributed greatly to the development of Chateau du Rouet’s vineyards, as part of his duties to dismantle the ship, took the doors from the cabin that housed Bonaparte’s ashes during the voyage and installed them on the chapel where they remain today.

In memory of the ship (which adorns the label even today) the winery produces a red, a white and a rose wine, all called “Cuvee Belle Poule.” The white wine is a blend of three grapes: Ugni Blanc (30%), Sémillon (20%) and Rolle (50%) from what the winery refers to as “old vines” but I’m not clear on just how old they are. 1250 cases are made.

Tasting Notes:
Pale gold in the glass, this wine has an appealing nose of pears, rainwater, and very faint melon aromas. In the mouth it is crisp, and light, and bouncy. Great acidity and mineral qualities underlie green melon and pear flavors that along with the chalky stone quality to the wine make it fantastically refreshing. Everything I want in a white wine with dinner.

Food Pairing:
I drank this with a lobster bisque the other night and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Overall Score: 9

How Much?: $18

The 2004 may be tricky to find, but the 2005 and 2006 are readily available for purchase on the internet.

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Today the United States lost one of its living legends, as Robert Mondavi died today at the age of 94. It’s hard to overstate the impact that Robert Mondavi had on the wine world. His name itself was, and still is, one of the most well known brands in America. His family’s (and his own) success in the wine business was a prototypical example of the American dream.

Robert Mondavi moved to Napa in 1930’s to work in the post-prohibition wine industry of the region, having grown up making wine with his father and brothers in Lodi, California, before attending Stanford University in Palo Alto. Mondavi convinced his father to purchase the Charles Krug winery in 1943, a decision that would prove fateful for the entire family. Under the Mondavis, Charles Krug would become one of the most successful Napa wineries of its time.

This success was not without its trials however, as Julia Flynn Siler chronicled in her history of the family last year. In 1966, after essentially being kicked out of the family, Mondavi founded his own winery in Napa. Through a combination of passion, savvy marketing, and sheer force of will, Mondavi built what can only be called an empire. The rising tide of Mondavi’s success, coupled with his own tireless promotion of the place he believed wine should hold in the modern American lifestyle, helped to forge Napa’s identity as one of the world’s great wine regions.

While the Mondavi name has perhaps lost some of its luster, just as the wines that continue to bear his name have diminished in quality and reputation, these should not and cannot detract from the accomplishments of the man himself. Most wine lovers today owe him a debt of gratitude, if only for helping make America a little more friendly to wine and those who care deeply about it.

Cheers, Robert!

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CNNMoney.com

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There’s a general philosophy among open-minded Christians that basically boils down to: “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” When one denomination agrees with 90% of what the other has to say, why focus on the 10% that separates?
I’ve held a similar attitude regarding Gary Vee since he burst on the scene a couple years ago. My [...]

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