Put your wine down. It is such a simple idea and makes such a big difference. Coming from me, the most spoiled I-like-it-and-want-to-drink-it-now, this might sound strange. Here’s how it works. You are standing at a tasting bar, doing a flight of reds to see what the house is putting down. (We don’t waste the house’s time with whites or even Merlots.) Like all tasters you swirl, smell and then hold the wine in your mouth and breath over it before you swallow. Somewhere in the back of your mind you know this might look pretentious, but too damn bad; this is grownup work and we get to enjoy it. Once you have tasted and decided what to buy, you have to decide what keep in the dining room and what will go down to the garage. Now the nice people behind the bar will tell you that everything they are pouring are ready to drink right now. But once they understand that you do know what you’re doing, they will actually start talking about how long the wine could go down.
This Thanksgiving we drank (along with some other really nice stuff) a 2007 Alley Cat from our old favorite, Milliaire. An Alicante Bouschet, it went down for five years and responded like a trooper. When we first tasted it, the wine was already really fine, with heft and spice and a whole lot of jammy grape. But, oh, what happened after it took a good long nap. It woke up and came to the party. Out of the undifferentiated grape came a beautiful structure. The spice and tannin did not to get in each other’s way. The grape clarified and some beautiful smoke came out. It cut through the richness of the meal, turkey and all. It was so fine, I can actually remember it in January.
Deep in a valley just outside of Plymouth (Amador Co.) there is a lovely little winery called Dobra Zemlja. Their specialty is zinfandel and they are run by an old Croatian brigand with the very best white mustache I have ever seen. In 2008 we tasted a house Zin and could have just drunk it all. It poured like a stream, just red with a little spice and when I win the lottery I’ll go back and buy cases of that stuff. Somehow, we put a bottle down and drank it on this Christmas Day. More than any other wine of the Season, this one was the most surprising. When we bought it, it was a really nice if somewhat gangly clear Zinfandel, the wine of California, but what we had on the feast day of the birth of my Lord was wonderful. The spice that is natural to Zin clarified and came to the front of the mouth. The grape took on some raisin and the copper, terroir in both Calaveras and Amador counties, clarified and brightened the whole mouth. This wine stood up to the Beef of Merrie Olde England and didn’t look back. Take a picnic lunch and check this place out. info@dobraz.com
Sharing is a very good thing,we learned that in kindergarten. But sometimes we hoard a bottle just to ourselves. We drank our Milliare Jeunesse 2007 with split pea soup on a cold winter night about a week and a half ago. The Jeunesse is a Primitivo, a proto Zin that Steve Millier has been cultivating, let us say babying, for a long time. This wine is a single pure note with a smooth, silky finish. It is hard enough to make a big structured wine like the Alley Cat, but to get so far out of the grape’s way that it can speak all on its own is even more difficult. Putting it down clarified the mouth and integrated what tannin there was. Damn, Steve, you are good. http://www.milliairewinery.com
Five to seven, that seems to be the sweet spot for the Calaveras and Amador wines. Zinfandels don’t do well much longer than seven and many of them can go down for a shorter time. The Gold Country wines are completely specific and always informed by the terroir. The dirt of the lower Sierras is so complicated but copper is obvious. You’ve heard me sing this song before: just go up, spend the night and drink the wine. Stand at those wine bars and talk to the people, and you will find what you want.
Oh, and by the way, put some of it down for a while. You will just love it.
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