Hello Again

Hello again.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. There are several reasons for that, mostly personal. Mainly, I wanted to focus my energy on my Washington Post wine column, which reaches a much wider audience and, well, it pays. But The Post still mentions this blog in the tagline of each column, and my wife keeps chiding me to take that out because I don’t post here any longer. Every now and then WordPress notifies me that someone has subscribed to the blog, and that tells me there is still interest out there. Some friends have also asked me about WineLine.

So here we are. Maybe it’s time to bring Dave McIntyre’s WineLine back to life. It’s always been a zombie. I started it in late 1998 as an email newsletter when my gig at the time, Sidewalk.com, dried up because banner ads hadn’t been invented and no one could yet make money from a website. This was before the word “blog” was coined, or maybe around that time. Robin Garr was kind enough to host my humble little newsletter on his WineLoversPage website for a few years. I went to Blogspot, then Typepad, and finally WordPress. Will I migrate to Substack, like the rest of the world? Perhaps. I like Substack. It’s a writer’s community. I might not feel so lonely there.

I’m reviving WineLine — or at least restarting it, I hope it will be vital enough to continue — because there is more to write about than I can fit in my column. Wines that are delicious but perhaps too small production or more expensive than my target range for a weekly newspaper column. Or just more wines than I can include in my current format of three recommendations per week. My reactions to wine news, articles, silly brouhahas on social media. Most importantly to me, local news about Virginia, Maryland and the “Other 47” — a focus that defined my early wine writing but no longer fits in The Washington Post’s current self image as a “national” publication. 

So what will you get with the “new” Dave McIntyre’s WineLine? Nothing polished. If I had a media team helping me, or if I’d simply gotten my act together, I’d have several weeks or months of posts ready to go so I could keep feeding you a stream of brilliant wine writing. But no. The only Force that is with me is inertia. You won’t get self-promotion; I’ve never been good at that. Content will be irregular, but it will be spontaneous, heartfelt and honest. Unvarnished (as in, my wonderful editors at The Post won’t be here to save me from myself). Humorous, I hope. Thought provoking, even. Sometimes just “Hey! Try this!” You may get a rant, but I hope no whine. (See what I did there?) Think of these not as posts or articles, but as letters to a fellow wine lover.

I hope you will enjoy it. Most of all, I hope you will let me know if you enjoy it, by posting in the comments. That’s the only way I’ll know if I’m reaching anyone or just talking to myself. Maybe we can get a good conversation started over a glass of nice wine.

All best for a wonderful 2023 vintage for you and yours. And thank you for waiting.

Dave

Local Solace: Left Foot Charley Blaufrankisch

While in Lansing for a painful personal visit, my wife and I took a nostalgia side trip to Ann Arbor, where we fell in love so long ago. Our first stop was Zingerman’s Delicatessen, a fledgling sandwich shop with ambition in our day and now a national and even international phenomenon as what can only be called a “food emporium,” consuming half a block on Detroit Street as well as an extensive online business. After eating our amazing (and expensive) sandwiches, I strolled back into the store to look at the wine selection. Wine is not Zingerman’s thing — the modest rack had only six selections. There was an Au Bon Climat and a Pietrodolce from Sicily. What really caught my eye was a Blaufrankisch from Left Foot Charley, one of my favorite wineries from the Traverse City area near Michigan’s pinkie finger.

Trying to live up to my Drink Local mantra, I bought a bottle, for $33. We opened it tonight as we snacked on leftover pizza and barbecue in our AirBnB on our final evening (for now) in Lansing. The wine is comforting, pristine in its fruit and balance, with flavors of blackberries and plums spiced with caraway and sage. It’s just what I needed to conclude a tough weekend dealing with the cruelties of life, and it gave what we can all only hope for: a delicious and gentle finish.

Left Foot Charley Blaufränkisch 2021, Old Mission Peninsula, Michigan. $33. 13% abv. $33 (purchased at Zingerman’s Delicatessen in Ann Arbor). The winery website does not currently list this wine, so it may be sold out, but there are a few single-vineyard bottlings and a Reserve available. And who outside of Austria does single-vineyard Blau?

Lansing-area restaurant recommendations include The Cosmos for very good takeout pizza and Gravity Smokehouse and BBQ for really fine barbecue.

Hillick & Hobbs Estate Vineyard Dry Riesling 2020

Every year, I tell myself to drink more Riesling. I reaffirmed that vow in June when I drove to upstate New York to be a judge in the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition and then hung around to enjoy the FLXCursion, a Riesling-soaked weekend based in Geneva, at the northern end of Seneca Lake.

I was able to visit some wineries on my own, including Hillick & Hobbs, the joint venture between California’s Paul Hobbs, who grew up in New York State, and Mosel legend Johannes Selbach. They’ve released three vintages, 2019 through 2021, and yes, they live up to the hype.

Hillick & Hobbs is the southern-most winery on the eastern side of Seneca Lake, a stone’s throw (sort of) from Watkins Glen. The are 24 acres planted, with 16 more available, and the vines are planted east-to-west rather than the more common north-to-south. That gives increased air flow, channeling cold air down toward the lake and easing disease pressure, according to winemaker Lynne Fahey. 

“Being on the southeast side of the lake, we get a lot of late-afternoon sun, so ripeness shouldn’t be a problem,” Fahey told me when I visited.

Fahey took over as winemaker in 2021 and moved to natural fermentation. As I tasted all three vintages, there was a definite texture difference in 2021, adding complexity and depth. And with the 2022 vintage, she began adding some barrel fermentation to the mix.

The wine I’m enjoying tonight at home in Maryland is the Hillick & Hobbs Estate Vineyard Dry Riesling 2020 $35 (sample). Nectarine, peach and a hint of citrus zest combine with the mineral oil texture of fine Riesling. The finish is long, slightly drying at the conclusion. It’s delicious with salmon brushed with mayo and coated with Penzeys Fox Point seasoning, slow roasted until just barely done. Hillick & Hobbs is still a work in progress, but it is progressing beautifully. And under Lynne Fahey’s stewardship, a winery to watch.

Washington D.C. Shows Well in Wine List Rankings?

Normally I choose scenic wine regions as my travel destinations, but The World of Fine Wine magazine offers a list of, well, wine lists for international travelers. The publication has been publishing its selection of the world’s best wine lists since 2014, and this week came out with the best “regional” lists, as in regional winners in various categories. It’s a sort of warm-up to the announcement in September of their final award winners.

And Washington D.C. had two honorees: RPM Italian restaurant was cited as North America’s winner for “Best Regional Wine List (Outside the Region)” for its selection of Italian wines. And Barcelona Wine Bar represents the continent in the “Best Organic Wine List” category.

As anyone who lives here knows (especially if you follow the reviews of my friends Tom Sietsema and Tim Carman in The Washington Post), D.C. has a pretty vibrant restaurant scene, even after the disastrous effects of the pandemic. (D.C. also has an inferiority complex about outsiders, especially The New York Times, not realizing that.) The wine scene in the nation’s capital is lively as well, with a group of entrepreneurial sommeliers opening wine bars and restaurants — looking at you, Brent Kroll (Maxwell Park, Pop Fizz Bar) and Elli Benchimol (Apéro and the upcoming La Boheme) — and a variety of small, independent wine importers with really good palates. But the city is not really known for amazing wine lists, and if you asked a group of wine lovers to name the city’s best, I doubt many would come up with RPM Italian or Barcelona Wine Bar. So kudos to them for the recognition, and good luck in the finals in September.

Just as an aside, The World of Fine Wine does not include a category for Best Natural Wines. I’ll leave that one there.

Remembering Mark Slater, a DC Wine Icon

The Washington, D.C., wine and food community lost an icon this weekend with the passing of Mark Slater.

Mark led the wine programs at Jean-Louis at the Watergate and later at Michel Richard Citronelle in Georgetown, two restaurants that helped establish the nation’s capital as a venue for fine dining. He also mentored many young aspiring sommeliers who now are carrying on that tradition, here and throughout the country.

After leaving Citronelle, Mark created the wine program at Rays the Steaks in Arlington, Va., a restaurant that subversively poked at the steakhouse vibe in DC. His knowledge of the world’s finest wines from his days with Jean-Louis Palladin and Michel Richard helped him find amazing values for diners with more modest budgets.

There will be plaudits for Mark published in the days to come, and maybe some more here if I hear from his friends and admirers. I didn’t know him well and I don’t have a photo with him to post here, but he always was helpful to me in my writing when I asked him for insight or a quote. That was his nature — he wanted everyone to enjoy wine, as he did or in their own way.

Like so many in the wine industry, Mark started on a different path. He studied music at the State University of New York College at Brockport, then specialized in harpsichord in Vienna, Austria. There he studied with Isolde Ahlgrimm, who is credited with helping to revive interest in Baroque music. Mark frequently posted videos on his Facebook page of him playing harpsichord. To me, his music sounded like Burgundy.

I say that somewhat facetiously, but I do feel that Mark’s musical training was integral to his success as a sommelier. He had an innate understanding of the harmony between wine and food, how one note works with another chord. And he could translate that into music on your plate and in your glass.

Mark poured the best wines in the world at Jean-Louis and Citronelle, But I think he’d be pleased that I am toasting him tonight with a Beaujolais, the Domaine Anita Cuvée P’tit Co 2020. Like Mark, it has a lot to say, but no bravado.

Domaine Anita, Cuvée P’tit Co Chenas 2020

A slight chill awakens the fruit and brings the wine alive to flavors of dark cherry and wild herbs. A woodsy scent of wild mushroom.There’s earth here, and quiet as heaven welcomes another soul.

Here are wildmusroojsk

Conversations with Terry Theise – Part 2: Stemware

Several weeks ago when Terry Theise asked me to do a blog exchange (sometimes called a “ramble”) in which we’d ask each other questions in a sort of rambling email interview, I noticed that on his blog he would sometimes give tasting notes for various wines from different stemware. A wine might give slightly different impressions in “the Jancis,” for example. So I decided to ask about his current preferences in stemware. (For do we ever truly settle on one for the rest of our lives?)

So here’s our exchange, with views on stemware from perhaps the most thoughtful taster out there. And also a reason to dust off those Champagne flutes that are kicking around the back of the cupboard.

DM: Let’s talk stemware. What is your favorite? Do you have brand loyalty? I notice in your tasting notes you specify one or two types of glasses and give separate tasting impressions for each, almost as if you are tasting the glass (or its influence) as much as the wine. Do you go for the exZALTOed stemware, or are you more pedestrian? 

Terry Theise: My “official” position on stemware is along these lines: We actually cannot know how a wine tastes, only how it tasted in the glass we happened to have used. 

Let’s say we have a friend who always wears black, and suddenly one day he shows up wearing red. Same guy, but he looks completely different. You will get the analogy to wine in various glasses without my laboring the point.

But I resist the rabbit hole. I don’t have many types of stems, just the ones that work for me. I love my Spiegelau “white wine 1.0” (as I call it) because it is always good. It’s a faithful workhorse glass that does the job. I have two other Spiegelau stems but I’m not especially loyal to Spiegelau as such.

What I call the “Jancis glass” is similarly though differently flexible. It’s the cerebral glass, particularly for white wines. It’s a go-to for me, especially for reds and for old wines of either color. You’ll have noted I nearly always compare it with another glass, because the contrast is telling and one can glean a through-line in the wine, even as they express differently from one glass to the other.

I think we take glasses both too seriously and not seriously enough.

Terry Theise

For reds, I have the Riedel “Chianti Classico,” another Spiegelau (the basic “red wine”) and again the Jancis. I toggle among them depending on the wine in play.

I own the (three) MacNeil glasses but never use them for drinking and only rarely use them for tasting.

For bubblies, I have the first Juhlin and also the “2.0” version, which is smaller. They offer me what I need. I also have three types of conventional flutes, but only use them when I’m tasting (or drinking) from a bottle that’s been opened a few times, so that I can protect what’s left of the mousse.

I have respect for Zalto in general but find that the “universal” glass is homicidal to 90% of the wines poured into it. I cordially loathe that glass, and will reject it whenever I can.

All of this is discussed in my blog, especially in the first 12-18 months of postings.

To sum up, I do believe the glass “narrates” the wine, and of course this is crucially important to anyone who assesses wine for any reason. But that said, I think it’s silly to have fifty different glass types sitting around, and it’s ridiculous on its face to get lost in the whole “I must drink this wine from the Syrah from 1-5 years glass,” because the money you spend on your zillion glass options would be better spent on wine.

DM: I agree with you that one needn’t invest in all those silly varietal shapes. The opposite of that fixation is the idea that glassware doesn’t matter at all, and you might as well drink your wine out of jelly jars. My own advice to readers has been that the glass should be appropriate for the wine. If you routinely drink $20 or less wines, then it makes no sense to splurge on fancy stemware. But if you’re paying $$$ for an expensive wine, then a proper glass may help suss out those nuances you’re paying for. (And if you’re paying for prestige just to show off, you’ll want fancy stemware for the same reason.) 

Our current favorite is Sophienwald, or SW, an Austrian line Lily and I were impressed with at Compline in Napa back in 2019. They look sort of like Zalto but less pronounced in that narrow funnel that always isn’t big enough to stick a nose in. (Zalto, I mean.) And not as breakable. They are $50 a stem (though they now seem to have gone up to $60), with four shapes: Sparkling, which I love in that it combines the flute and tulip shape with the widest part about three quarters to the top. Then there’s a glass for “racy whites” like Riesling, Albarino, or even rosé, a narrow funnel of a glass with a wider base at the bowl. The third is an all-purpose, and if I were to buy only one shape, it would be this — and maybe the sparkling. I love the light weight a beautiful balance of these glasses — in other words, they feel classy. And they have fared well in comparison tastings with other types of glasses.

The fourth shape is the red wine glass. It’s more like a traditional Burgundy bowl, and is rather wide and low compared to the Riedel red wine giants. I find it a bit unwieldy when swirling, and at first I didn’t like it. But I’ve come around — it does a very good job of releasing red wine’s aromas rather than trying to aim them at a particular area of my sinuses. It’s not as pretty or graceful as the others, though.

And then just to sum it all up:

TT: I think we take glasses both too seriously and not seriously enough.

In the Finger Lakes, a broad look at real American wine

It was a great pleasure this month to serve as a judge at the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition. I don’t judge many competitions, but this one was special: It is organized by my friend Bob Madill, who is somewhat of an éminence grise in the Finger Lakes. And it benefits a great cause: Camp Good Days and Special Times, a camp for young children with cancer. 

And I was really interested in the variety of the wines we tasted. The competition is international, with several entries from Canada (Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec), and a handful from Australia. E & J Gallo entered their Alamos wines from Argentina. The vast majority were from the United States, of course, with New York well represented. So was Virginia: Cross Keys Vineyards won Best of Class in Cabernet Franc and Hybrid White, while Wind Vineyards took Best of Class Hybrid Red. Other wineries on the medal list included James City Cellars, Pollak Vineyards, Effingham, the Winery at Sunshine Ridge Farm, Gray Ghos, Maggie Malick Wine Caves, Rosemont, and Beliveau Farm Winery. I’m probably missing some others.

And of course, there was Norton!

Maryland was represented by Sugar Loaf Mountain Vineyards, Bordeleau and Layton’s Chance (for a watermelon wine!). Texas took home some awards for Pedernales, Spicewood, and Solaro Estate. Tennessee, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota were well represented, as were Missouri, Colorado and Arizona.

There were a lot of hybrid and fruit wines, as well as meads. These were what I really looked forward to, and I can say I have some new favorites. Brianna reminded me of petit manseng, and Frontenac gris can be outstanding. There are some very impressive wines being made from these grapes. Chambourcin seems to do especially well when blended with Cabernet Franc.

One limitation of judging a competition is not knowing exactly what I was experiencing. But I did identify a few wineries to put on my radar. My panel did a Best of Class tasting on red blends, which was won by Armstrong Valley Vineyard and Winery in Pennsylvania. (This winery also won Best of Class for Cabernet Sauvignon). Arrington Vineyards in Tennessee will have to build a new trophy case to hold all the medals they took in. And a Quebec meadery, Miel Nature, pretty much owned that category, winning Best of Class and three Platinum medals for some stunning meads I was able to sample afterwards.

I’m already looking forward to joining Bob and his crew next year. And I hope my wine industry friends will continue to support this competition by entering. In the meantime, maybe I’ll find me some Frontenac Gris. 

A Taste of History

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Mariposa by Gillmore País 2021

This wine doesn’t match today’s concept of quality. Which is to say, it wouldn’t win any wine-geek plaudits for “typicity.” The color is a translucent balsamic strawberry, as if the winemaker had a crisis of confidence and decided halfway through fermentation to make a red instead of a rosé. Or vice versa. It doesn’t smell like black currants, pencil shavings, sagebrush or sex under a full moon. The finish is fine, but you don’t need a stopwatch to assess it. This wine will never score 100 points, and probably not even approach 90.

Yet it tastes so good. 

The flavors are light, a hint of candied cherry or strawberry bubblegum. The texture has substance, though — a weight about it that fills the mouth and suggests … well, what does it suggest? To me, history. This is País, the grape brought to the New World by Spanish missionaries in the 1500s to make communion wine. It had many alibis as it spread from Chile (País) and Argentina (Criolla), Mexico (Mision) and California (Mission). Modern grape DNA research has identified it as Listran Prieto, from central Spain. The missionaries may have taken cuttings from there or picked them up during a stop in the Canary Islands. Their record keepers had other things on their mind, unfortunately.

Today a few wineries in Chile and Argentina make wines from Mission, but they are decidedly niche. Some of the “vineyards” actually are wild vines that must be harvested on ladders. Some of California’s old-vine vineyards include patches of Mission, but no one is planting it now — except for the Mariani brothers at Scribe Vineyards in Sonoma. 

This wine from Gillmore in Chile makes me wish more wineries would take Mission seriously. With younger drinkers favoring lighter reds, it’s time for an historic grape variety to get a larger País of the action.

Mariposa País 2021 by Gillmore,  Loncomilla, Maule Valley, Chile. Estate bottled, old vines, dry farmed. 13% abv. The winery is part of Movi, the independent winemaker movement in Chile. About $16-17. Imported by Global Vineyard Importers.

Sense of Place: Audarya Vermentino di Sardegna 2022

I’ve never been to Sardinia, but this wine makes me believe I know the place. Aromas of white flowers and wild herbs place me in a garden on a bluff overlooking the Mediterranean. A steady but comfortable sea breeze carries briny salt air to tickle my palate and make me hungry. Is someone building a fire on the beach to grill the morning catch? There’s a squeeze of lemon, too, and of course olive oil from the most recent harvest, zesty, peppery and fruity. Dinner is served as the sun sinks into the wine-dark sea.

Audarya Vermentino di Sardegna DOC 2022. ABV: 13 %. Imported by Wide Roots LLC, Baltimore, Md.

Domaine de Chevalier Vertical

I enjoyed a Bordeaux themed week in mid-May. It began with a dinner featuring wines of Domaine de Chevalier, organized by my friend Panos Kakaviatos. Panos is a wine blogger and contributor to Decanter magazine, as well as a bon vivant of wine, Bordeaux in particular. He has this odd hobby of organizing a few dinners a year in Washington, D.C., centered around a vertical tasting of a single Bordeaux chateau. I wrote about one of these events 12 years ago, coincidentally also involving Domaine de Chevalier. (Though I see now as I look up that piece I inexplicably referred to it as Chateau Chevalier.)

This year’s dinner at 1789 Restaurant in Georgetown featured six vintages of Domaine de Chevalier blanc and six more of the rouge. Chevalier is in the Pessac-Leognan AOC that was carved out of Graves several years ago — this area is known for its white wines as well as its reds, and Chevalier is one of a few chateaux awarded classified growth status in both. The wines were presented by Patricia Alazraki, a New York-based brand ambassador for Monsieur Touton Selection, Chevalier’s importer.

The domaine has been owned since 1983 by the Bernard family, so the tasting provided a window into their stewardship over four decades.

The white vintages we tasted were 2017, 2010, 2001, 1993, 1989 and 1983. They demonstrated the ageability of top-line white Bordeaux. A blend of sauvignon blanc and semillon, Chevalier blanc remains fresh for decades. Of these, only the 1993 showed signs of any sherry-like oxidation, though the acidity remained vibrant. In my notes, I wrote “humming more than singing.”

The other vintages were not just singing, they were a choir. My favorite was the 1989, with lively tropical flavors. The 2017 was a reminder that we commit infanticide on white wines. This one was just becoming approachable, though it seemed to scold us for opening it so young. The 2010 was also closed, but I was able to swirl out a hint of sweet bay and jasmine. This one will continue to develop. 

“The 2010 blanc is proof a classic vintage can make great white and great red,” Alazraki said, explaining that cooler vintages that are tough on reds often produce superior whites, while warmer years that favor reds run the risk of flabbier whites with lower acidity. 

For the reds, we had 2010, 2005, 2000, 1995, 1990 and 1985. The 2010 was purple in color, plush in texture, and deep in flavor with black fruit. It was obviously quite young and if I didn’t know the vintage I would have guessed something much more recent. The ’05 earned a “wow” in my notes: “This seem to be opening up to reveal its potential,” I wrote. The 2000 was a crowd favorite with its velvety texture and fine tannins. “This is Christmas!” someone exclaimed.

Panos always puts on a show – this time with
1789 Restaurant

The final three reds displayed the classic Chevalier style, and the classic Bordeaux signature of graphite, silky tannin with great balance as flavors transitioned from jammy fruit to more earthy, tertiary notes. My favorite was the 1985, which was simply outstanding.

I was seated next to Michael Apstein, the Boston-based writer for WineReviewOnline.com. Michael noted that the final three wines were noticeably less ripe than the more recent vintages and wondered if they might be pre-climate change. That’s no-doubt a factor, though I suspect changes in viticulture and winemaking — especially the move to micro-cuvees and an increased emphasis on blending — contributed as well.

One thing was undeniable: These wines were all delicious and displayed a consistent character we can attribute to Domaine de Chevalier and the Bernard family. 

The dinner, by the way, was fabulous, and the service by Brian Zipin and his crew was flawless. Put 1789 Restaurant on your radar when in DC.

My Bordeaux week culminated a few days later with the annual Masterclass in Bordeaux held by the Heart’s Delight wine auction. The class this year was led by Jane Anson. I’ll summarize that tasting in a future post.