2007 Chateau Rigaud (Faugeres) - $11.99

Here’s another, Faugeres, which is closer to the Rhone than the Bordeaux sphere of influence. The terroir is schist-y and rugged, the grapes Rhonish and the winemakers as proud and clever as any.

You can taste that in what happens to the Syrah and Grenache at Ch. Rigaud in Faugeres, with the advice of Claude Gros.  The 2007 is deep in flavor and rich in texture, quite elegant  in structure, more like a Left Bank Bordeaux than a CdR.  The aroma is earthy and floral, the tastes to me are deep plum, raspberry and hints of black raspberry. This is black-tie syrah, proper enough for a banquet featuring a steamship round of beef with truffle jus, lively enough to take a spin on the dancefloor afterwards.

Doubt me if you wish but it gets at least a 91 from the two Roberts (Sprentall and Parker).  At $11.99, I’d stick a couple in the cellar. Might be the first Languedoc in such fine company. Won’t be the last.

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler

Taken on its face, the name labels the wine as one who’ll do anything to please. Which is exactly what some people accused Aussies of doing when they cracked the U.S. market in the 1980s: Breaking rules to come up with wines that tasted good to real people: rich, easy, soft and sweet.  The ruination of the wine business: Wine Americans liked.  They stooped to please.

They still do in this simple screwcap red blend, 2007 Ass-Kisser Fine Red Wine. I rather like the pride in those last three words, no need to tongue in cheek on this one. It’s Syrah and Grenache (59/41), rather fat and happy in body with a creamy texture and flavors of cherries, berries and plums streaked with chocolate and licorice. Easy on the first tip of the tongue and all the way to the finish.

It’s an unfussy wine at an unfussy price ($7.99) and will go with food to match, from burgers and pork barbecue to take-out pizza.

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler

La Granacha Signargues Cotes du Rhone VV - $13.99

Don’t know where this spelling came, but no quibbles about the authenticity of the 2007 La Granacha from Signargues. This is genuine old school Grenache, 100 percent, all old vines, unfiltered and organic soil.  This is from one of the premier villages of the Cotes du Rhone Villages but the wine was hidden in the bottles of fancier labels until Eric Solomon rescued it.

The wine is full-one Grenache from the earthy nose on, cherries, licorice, pepper and spice, wrapped in  a deep red  coat on a sturdy frame with a long finish. Why go all the way to Chateauneuf du Pape when you can hang out in this lovely Rhone village for a baguette sandwich and stay for roast lamb.

One of the best tastes of the Southern Rhone – Parker says 91 – and it’s only $13.99.

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler

Consider Marlborough, the fashion leader in new-era Sauvignon Blanc, crisp as Sancerre with aroma to overpower a Rhine maiden. In the last decade it’s become synonymous with some very big names. Yet Marlborough’s a big region with a lot of winemakers who toil hard on the same terroir.

2009 Clifford Bay Sauvignon Blanc - $8.99

Take the road farther east out to Awatere on the edge of the Pacific and you’ll find some bargains. I’ve already touted The Crossings ($9.99) as a lively SB refresher, with enough lemon grass and lime for a Thai dinner. Now I’ve found an even better deal  from an Awatere neighbor, 2007 Clifford Bay at $8.99.

When you open the bottle gooseberries (kiwis to us) and lime juice smack you like a Key lime pie in the face. You won’t get grapefruit in the mouth, just everything else, kiwi, citrus and pineapple with a lively bite of green pepper at the end, all in a very clean package. I had it with fresh pompano sautéed in olive oil, red rice and bokchoy and garlic. Didn’t need no stinkin’ lemon wedge.

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler

A beautiful view from Sardinia

“Sixty Minutes” told the white-wine-worried to drink red for their heart’s sake more than a decade ago. Now Good Morning America trumpets the health benefits of “black” wine, specifically the Cannonau of Sardinia as magic bullets of antioxidants and anthocyanin in a bottle.

This is not so much breakthrough science as a new wave of publicity for a veggie-heavy Mediterranean diet. In this case, GMA guest Dan Buettner touted his new book on “Blue Zones” a term he coined for clusters of great longevity.  He hails Sardinians for a traditional peasant diet long on bread, cheese and wine. Meat? Not so much, Buettner says.

 Well it is an island and, duh, home of sardines. Still Buettner says fish is not as important as sheep’s cheese and dark red wine. His other “blue zones” are not viticultural hot spots: Okinawan, the Nikoya peninsula of Costa Rica, and the Adventist/vegetarian center of Loma Linda, California.

Me, I suspect hard work and exercise have more to do with it.  Yet Canonau, Sardinia and its distinctive cuisine deserve the plug.

Cannonau is the local name for Grenache or Garnacha, a dark-skinned and rustic favorite around the Mediterranean. Too many Americans think Grenache is a wimp grape for jug wines, especially pink.  Hardly. Cannonau/grenache/garnacha can make rich stuff in America, Spain, the south of France and especially Sardinia, the big island west of Tuscany and north of Sicily. One of the best is Sella & Mosca’s riserva from 2005. Full of flowers and dark dried fruits,  a lot of wine for $12.99. And yes, it’s very dark. Drink to long life.

2005 Sardus Pater Kanai Riserva of Sardinia - $34.99

Another darkling, more sophisticated and possibly more salubrious is the Kanai reserve from Sardus Pater, made from Carignane a compatriot grape of Grenache is the dark skinned Mediterranean gang.  This won a three-glass Tre Biccherri salute from Gambero Rosso, even before the diet doctors weighed in. It’s $34.99 at B-21.

As to the healthful red wine, most research points to the dark est but researchers are still deciding which grapes varietals have the most punch. Dark colors, high tannins, high extraction, extra sunlight, high altitude are clues, not guarantees.

Still color is fun and purple black in a glass excites me and starts an old Isley Brothers tune in my head “The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.”

Besides Cannonau/Grenache , other dark wines are high in the right flavonoids, specificially the tannins and anthocyanins. These are found in the seeds, stems and skins of grapes that give red and blue colors to wine (anthocyanins color flowers too) and rather healthful.

These include Mourvedre/Monastrell, the tannat of Uruguay, and the Malbecs of Argentina and Cahors southeast of Bordeaux.

While we’re at it, the food in Sardinia is unusually fresh and primal. The  island has its own pecorino, a couscous called fregola.  flaky flat bread as fragile as old sheet music, and wood-fired meats. You can get a great helping of the island’s food and wines (black and otherwise) at Sardinia Ristorante and Enoteca on a quiet corner of Miami’s South Beach.

So drink up and live long. Very long.

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler

Together they packed a vinegar punch, a double shot of peppers and a spice grinder full of fun.

Riggwelter Yorkshire Ale at B-21 for $3.99/btl in-store.

The answer was not an India Pale Ale, but a hefty no-nonsense English strong ale from Yorkshire, the Rigg Welter from Black Sheep Brewery.  Whew, Yorkshire ale is from a different planet, one that deserves more attention and savoring: the strength is in massive broad hops as well as big alcohol.

Riggwelter is an exceptional ale from Black Sheep, a young brewery with old traditions. Btw, the name is what old Yorkshire farmers call a sheep that’s fallen and can’t get up (Must have been a wave of sheep-tipping).

This is dark coffee brown with a creamy head with an aroma of fresh roasted coffee that carries through to an earthy flavors of coffee and malt and hops bitter enough to stand up to all the flavors on my plate.

It’s a hop heads delight, one of many on the expanding shelves of craft beers at B-21.

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler

The Rocky Slate Landscape in Priorat

Too much terroir talk is of rainfall, heat-degree days, angles of slope, fogs and breezes. Oughta be more on terra that underlies it all, dirt and rocks. Don’t say soil; unlike most farmers grape growers never brag about fertile ground. They love to pick up big rocks and boast of granite or clay. The harder the vines work, the richer the grape. No grapes work harder than those in Priorat, small rocky terrain between Barcelona and the coast, so dusty and rugged Clint Eastwood could have made Catalan Westerns in the boulders. It’s hard to navigate a car or tractor but rugged grape vines have fought through stacks and stacks of solid slate and schist for centuries to find water. When they do, the Grenache and especially the Carinena (Carignane, but don’t tell the snobs) make rich juice with a distinctly slaty character. Great stuff as B-21 explorers found this February once they got past Rioja and Ribera. Tiny Priorat is the next big thing and already one of the most dear because of the difficult growing and farming and low yields . The texture and taste isn’t quite blackboard, more like the licorice of childhood, black and long lasting, both smooth and chewy. Exhibit No. 1 was the 2006 Mas Doix Doix ($109.99), a grand mountain ram of a wine, bold, elegant and gamy, red and black berries pressed almost to membrillo paste, earthy and candied. Half carinena, it makes Sr. Parker swoon with memory of grand cru Burgundy and a number like… 97.  The more affordable Salanques (the 2006 is only $29.99) was more Rhonish and longer on Grenache but you still taste the rocks and the sap of the old vines, lots of berries, full and happy in the mouth with a sleek finish. Priorat’s brimming with small exquisitely rugged vineyards today, and B-21 has two dozen not including the grand Mas Alta range (formerly known as Mas Romani). 

2007 Black Slate Priorat - Reg 19.99 (On Sale Now - $17.99) for a limited time!

Yet you can start your climb more easily with the 2007 Black Slate, a new “village Priorat” from Porrera at $17.99. This is still rich drinking, old vines with blue-black berries, dense and almost sweet.  At all levels, Priorat is not tinto for tapas; slaughter the fatted calf, bring in the young lamb and the oldest ham. Priorat is also at the heart and start of our trusted European Cellars of Eric Solomon. The ancient rocks and vines there were revitalized by a Gang of Five smart Spanish winemakers 20 years ago. One of them Daphne Glorian, introduced Eric Solomon to Priorat with her Clos Erasmus and eventually married him.

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler

Once limited local oddities, reds of Germany and Austria, especially pinot noir, have boomed in production and promotion. While pinot has always been something of a cool climate red, warming climates has allowed it to move farther north and ripen better; plus viticulturalists have bred, rescued and purified other grape strain.  More than a third of German vineyards now bear red .

 Media reception is warmer too judging from Eric Asimov’s report of a wine dinner with 19 Spatburgunders  at the Austrian restaurant Seasonal in Manhattan in the NYT.

 For those who have learned the infinite parsing of Riesling in Germanic hands, red wines are a different matter. Many areas, old and new ,and a bigger range of grapes. One clue, when seeking g red in German wine terms, think  blau (blue or black grapes) and rot (red but a poor word choice).

 So here’s a clue to the German names of varietals you’ll find on bottles from Mitteleuropa (and from other chilly climates around the world seeking grapes with flavor and hardiness):

2008 P. J. Valckenberg Dornfelder - 9.99 (8.99 by the case!)

Blauer Portugieser: No one knows if it has roots in Oporto, but it makes good  roses and reds from dull to claret. Get a good taste of it from the 2007 Kallstadt ($9.99).  

Blaufrankisch, aka Lemberger:  Rich, spicy reds grown widely in eastern Europe and occasionally in the U.S. Northwest.  From the red hot red wine center of Wurttemberg in the Mosel, B-21 sought out the 2007 Grafen Neipperg which shows how it’s done well ($15.99).  

Dornfelder: Verystrong, fruity and good texture and a good grower, but still second to spatburgunder.  Look to Rheinhessen producers like Valckenberg’s 2008 ($9.99).  

Sankt Laurent:  Probably related to pinot noir, good aroma and easier to grow.  

Spatburgunder:  German for pinot noir and the most heavily planted. B-21 has two from Baden under $15 and a rare treat found by B-21, the rave-winning 2005 Huber Malterninger ($59.99) one of Germany’s best .  

Zweigelt:  A cross of Blaufrankisch and Sankt Laurent, most popular in Austria and also grown in Canada.

- Chris Sherman, The Blogging Nibbler

2007 Bodegas Atalaya (Almansa) - 12.99

“Juan Gil is one of my favorite wineries, so when I heard they were in cahoots with the King of Spanish Wine, Mr. Jorge Ordonez, I knew only good things could come of it. This project in its very inception is already turning heads (91WA, 90ST) with the 2007 (their first vintage). Made mainly of Monastrell and Garnacha, Atalaya is a big red wine full of depth and complexity yet smooth and readily approachable. On the nose I get black fruits, spice and a little smoke. On the palate it is full-bodied and rich. It should pair perfectly with red meats be it a grilled filet or a juicy burger. This is a wine to watch!”

90 Points, Summer Martin
Staff Selection, March 2010

2005 Bodegas Poesia Clos des Andes Reserva - 19.99

“2005 Clos des Andes is the latest addition to the prestigious Bodega Poesia collection. This 100% Malbec is sourced from 80 year old vines from the Lujan de Cuyo region of Mendoza and aged to perfection in French oak for one year. Vibrant red in color, musky aromas of baked plum, cedar, violets and black cherry. Extremely elegant in depth and balance lengthened with subtle sweet flavors of berries and herbs. For the perfect Clos des Andes experience decant and serve at 64 degrees. A great representation of Malbec at an affordable price!”

91 Points, Shannon Sprentall
Staff Selection, March 2010