‘E’ Wine of the Week

By Bruce Cochran

Hello Everyone,

Today we take a fairly broad look at our side of the wine world, with a reminder of what draws so many of us to it. First, of course, it tastes great. Second, the world of wine is a fascinating mélange of geography, science, history, math, philosophy and, I’m sure, many other fields …

Try a new wine this week!

Bruce

The Pacific Coast

From Canada to Chile, from British Columbia to the BioBio River, the Pacific Coast of North and South America has a greater variety of climates, grape varieties and wine styles than just about any other part of the world.

Just look at this list, from north to south: British Columbia, Washington, Oregon’s Willamette (north) and Rogue (south) valleys, California’s Mendocino, Sonoma, Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Temecula regions, Mexico’s Baja (yes, very up-and-coming), and Chile’s 150-mile, ladder-like stretch of river valleys from the Maule to the BioBio.

But the farthest from the equator isn’t necessarily the coldest. Proximity to the chilly waters of the Pacific Ocean (whose cold Humboldt Current gives us great seafood for nearly this entire stretch), makes more of a difference, as do coastal ranges either channeling those breezes inland to vineyards or blocking them.

Matching the right grape to the right climate goes a long way toward determining a wine’s quality and style. Chardonnay in a cooler area will likely be lighter and crisper with more palate-cleansing acidity, while riper grapes from warmer weather will often result in a bigger, richer, fuller, softer style. Trying two styles in the same meal is great fun for wine fans.

On a restaurant wine list or in a wine store, it often pays to consider the source. You might not have seen much pinot noir from Chile, but it’s been doing pretty well in the cooler southern region near the BioBio River. Maybe we’ll see more in the future.

And just as California’s Santa Maria Valley — not that far from Los Angeles — is cool enough for great pinot noir and Burgundian-style chardonnays, much of northern California’s Mendocino County is quite warm and better known for more heat-loving grapes. Southern Mendocino’s Anderson Valley is a notable exception.

And farther north, northern Oregon’s Willamette Valley has a cool climate, while southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley is warmer.

The world of wine is indeed a wide one, and that’s what continually fascinates some of us fans. Geography, science, history, even math, art and philosophy, whatever your interests may be, you can find it there if you look.

Hello Everyone,

Wine country visitors in California often begin in San Francisco and then head north across the Golden Gate Bridge to Napa and Sonoma, or south to Monterey and beyond. Much of the wine we enjoy every day, however, comes from a lesser-known but increasingly important region-Lodi.

Try a new wine this week!

Bruce

Lot 205 Winery’s 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon

The city of Lodi (“LOW die”) is in the northern part of California’s large Central Valley, a region known as much for vegetables as for its large amounts of modest wine. Lodi, however, has for some time been distinguishing itself with old-vine zinfandel and other varieties, many Spanish or at least Mediterranean. Along the way, the cabernet and merlot there have improved in quality.

This area is 100 miles east of San Francisco near the San Joaquin River Delta, south of Sacramento and west of the Sierra Nevada. As temperatures rise in the Central Valley, cool bay breezes are pulled across the Lodi region through a gap between the northern and southern coastal ranges that meet at the San Francisco Bay.

Because of this, Lodi is cooler in the west, warming toward the eastern end, in the rolling foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Lodi has been a major grape growing region since the 1850s. Today, the area has 100,000 acres of winegrapes, farmed by more than 750 growers. Twenty percent of California’s total winegrape production — more than Napa and Sonoma Counties combined — come from Lodi. Many major national wine brands routinely include Lodi grapes in their wines.

But Lodi also has old-vine zinfandel, recognizable by the stand-alone, head-pruned vineyards.  Few regions have this combination of quantity and quality, a situation that usually means good wines at great prices.

So the next time you’re enjoying a glass of California wine, and the label doesn’t say exactly which part of California it’s from, there’s a very good chance that you’re drinking wine from Lodi Wine Country.

Eighty-two percent of the grapes used for Lot 205 Winery’s 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon are from the rolling hills and gravely soil of eastern Lodi. Lot 205 retails for about $12.

‘E’ Wine of the Week

By Bruce Cochran

Hello Everyone,

Most of us eat and drink different things during the hot summer months than we do during the winter. This week we’ll explore ideas for pairing summertime wines with lighter dishes …

Try a new wine this week!

Bruce

These days, lighter summertime menus can really challenge our wine pairings. With ingredients from around the world, we can mix flavors and textures like never before. Fruits like pineapple can find their way onto the plate from grilled on their own to being combined in a fruit salsa, where it may be joined by a seemingly never ending array of peppers. What kind of wine has a chance with this?

Beginning, as always, with the idea of drinking what you enjoy, there are some guidelines available to give us a starting point. And, you never know, you may find a new favorite wine that you pour with certain dishes.

Here are a few quick ideas from other wine lovers who are always searching for great food and wine combinations, beginning with white wines.

First, a white wine might be sweet or it might be dry, and that makes a real difference with what kind of flavors it best accompanies. For most dishes, dry tends to work better, but for spicy dishes a slightly sweet wine can be a much better match.

Second, some wines are really tart, while others are much softer. A good general rule of thumb is to pair opposites together. If a dish is tart, like when you squirt lemon juice onto your fish, that tartness can clash with a tart wine. Since a crisp, tart white wine can be very refreshing on a warm summer evening, so you might hold off on the lemon — or at least try the pairing with and without the lemon to see how you prefer it.

But what do you do with, say, grilled fish served with a fruit salsa, something that combines sweet, tart and pepper? What I keep in mind is the idea that even a dry wine can impress the palate as being ripe, and almost sweet, if the grapes were really fully ripened. I think about places like California’s Santa Barbara County, especially the Santa Maria Valley. With its extended fall ripening period, the flavors of these wines can almost mirror the tropical fruit flavors of many fruit salsas, as can the rich texture they often develop. A bit of oak can help the match, as it, too, can add an impression of sweetness to the wine.

Some of us continue to drink red wines during the summer, though many of us switch to a different style of red. Red wines that are fruit-centered, with less emphasis on oak and tannin, can taste good served at a cooler temperature than we’d serve reds during colder months. That can be appreciated a lot when you’re grilling outdoors in hot weather.

[e'wine of the week]
By Bruce Cochran

With dry summers, winter rains and its proximity to the Pacific Ocean, the climate for much of Chile is very similar to California’s Central Coast wine country, which is about as far north of the equator as Chile is south.

Most Chilean vineyards lie between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, which moderates the climate much like it does in California. Wine styles typically fall somewhere between California and France, neither extremely full-bodied nor extremely elegant.

With food and wine, Chile is a very global place. There is a variety of international influences, with contributions from California, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. This may seem unlikely, as Chile is one of the world’s most isolated wine countries, with the world’s largest ocean on one side, the highest mountains outside the Himalayas on the other, Antarctic glaciers in the south and the world’s driest desert (the Atacama) at its north.

For this reason, the vine malady called phylloxera has never been as big a problem in Chile as it has in most other parts of the wine world. Most vines there are descendants of the original French cuttings and are ungrafted, meaning they are planted directly into the ground. Most of the world’s vines are grafted onto American rootstock that are resistant to phylloxera. Because of this the Chileans sometimes say that their wines have a truer taste of the originals.

The most popular grape varieties there are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chardonnay. One of their best is Sauvignon Blanc, in a crisp “Pacific Rim” style somewhat reminiscent of a toned-down New Zealand version. There is also renewed interest in a red grape called Carmenere. Like Cabernet and Merlot, Carmenere is a red wine variety from the Bordeaux region of France. No longer grown much in France, the Chileans are very big on it.

Most of Chile’s wine regions are river valleys that begin in the Andes and end at the ocean, from Santiago south about 125 miles. On a map they resemble a ladder. In roughly a north to south order they include: Aconcagua (north of Santiago, on the slopes of Mount Aconcagua), Casablanca (on the plains spreading west from Santiago toward the ocean), Maipo and Pirque, Rapel, Colchagua, Curico, Lontue, Maule, Bio Bio. It tends to be cooler as you move south.

Chile makes lots of wine ranging from $5 to more than $100 per bottle, much of it exported around the world. Conde de Velazquez Cabernet Sauvignon, named for a notorious conquistador, is made in the northern Aconcaqua region. You can buy this cab locally for about $10.

Bruce Cochran has traveled to every major wine region on four continents. A 30-year veteran of the wine trade, he taught continuing education wine classes for 26 years at colleges throughout Arkansas.