Chardonnay remains a tale of two worlds.  One way to consider that proposition is by pondering the polarized old and new world style profiles.  But even setting continental divides aside, the two tales of Chardonnay remain conflicted inside the US.  I was reminded of this when the folks at Harvest PR & Marketing got in touch with me during their work on the inaugural release of Domaine Serene 2010 Evenstad Reserve Chardonnay.

We had a discussion based on, among a few other things, these questions:

1. Are you familiar with Domaine Serene?
2. How often do you drink Chardonnay, and for what occasion(s)?
3. What’s your experience with Willamette Valley Chardonnay (and/or Dijon clones), and how do you think it compares to Chardonnays of other regions?
4. How would you describe Chardonnay’s current reputation among your readers and consumers?

I am quite familiar with Domaine Serene’s outstanding Pinot Noir program, don’t drink Chardonnay nearly as much as I used to, and have little experience with the variety in Willamette.  Question #4 was an intriguing one and it gave away the PR and marketing challenge Domaine Serene confronted; what is Chardonnay’s reputation with readers and consumers?  In one Chardonnay tale reported on by the Wine Institute, it is “the most widely planted winegrape (95,271 acres) and ..the most popular wine in the U.S….with sales increases every year….28 percent of California’s table wine volume shipped to the U.S. market in 2010.” Face value, the consumer data is all green lights.

But in a separate Chardonnay tale, the once familiar ABC (anything but Chardonnay) tale, more selective consumers have said “no” to Chardonnay and searched for white wine substitues.  The truth to tale #2 is now better understood as the outcry for fruit-not butter and oak, and wines with balance and acidity to make you salivate and that taste good with food.  While I used to drink a lot more Chardonnay through the mid 90′s, I did get tired picking through a sea of imbalanced, heavily-oaked and caramel renditions in search of the pinpoint balance and fruit focus that makes Chardonnay a world class wine.  Still, so many of the younger wine drinkers (meaning under 40) I know resist Chardonnay, replaced by “hipper” Albarino, Pinot Grigio, Godello, Chenin Blanc, Riesling, Gruner Veltliner, and a longer list of white varieties you can’t easily spell or pronounce.

Somewhat guilty myself, I moved around with my head down these past ten years, lured to the Loire Valley, Burgundy, Galicia, Lombardy,and elsewhere,…getting caught up in discovery and failing to check back in on American winemakers now paying homage to the more traditional Burgundian Chardonnay treatment that at least one significant piece of the market has been screaming for more of.  For sure, the vast US acreage planted to Chardonnay is supported by plenty of bulk gooey, oaky, buttery chardonnay being poured all over town, but not for the people I drink wine with.  I remember opening a delicious bottle of 2005 L’angevin Heintz Vineyard Chardonnay upon arrival at a wine tasting and watching in amazement as many said “no thank you” when they recognized the Chardonnay bottle shape.  That kind of formed bias continues to play out in restaurants and wine shops all around America.  But, is it possible that high end domestic winemaking has been running to catch up to the market and it’s still enough of a secret to keep a piece of the potential Chardonnay market sidelined?

I was curious and sympathetic to the Domaine Serene cause because I knew they were up against it if indeed they were going to rely on their Dijon clones to produce Chardonnays that the upper end of the market will stand up and notice.  In exchange for all my jabbering, Domaine Serene’e Allan Carter sent me a bottle of the 2010 Evenstad Reserve Chardonnay, blended from the Cote Sud (47%), Clos du Soleil (23%), Clos du Lune (16%) and Etoile (14%) to taste after just ten days in the bottle.  He sent it alongside their monumental, silky, gorgeous, herb tinged, fruit forward Evenstad Reserve Pinot Noir made in the great 2008 Oregon vintage, just as a matter of context and to demonstrate the abiding quality of the Chardonnay.

If there are more Wilamette, Oregon, or California Chardonnays produced in this style then I have been missing out on something important.  The 2010 Evenstad Reserve Chardonnay has a very light yellow hue, and at first a restrained lemon peel aromatic is all you get, followed by a feint touch of lees as the wine opens.  The wine goes on to provide a totally clean palate impression, with wet slate and resin aromas.  It offers a delicate impression while expressing pure Chardonnay fruit, with always present acidity that gets the juices flowing, but stops short of being overly edgy.  The wine’s purity, cleanliness,and absence of wood reminds me of austere Chablis.  The wine, in two words, is mind blowing.  All the PR babbling about natural wines, clonal legacies, first to plant, and Burgundian style aside, this Chardonnay demonstrates what it will take to regain the attention of the serious upper end of the informed wine market.  And with the freedom for winemakers to style and blend Chardonnay as they please, the landscape is wide open for a high end Chardonnay revival.

I never would have been able to guess this was a US Chardonnay.  That’s my fault because I have not been keeping pace, going along and ignoring Chardonnay because of the wanderless and uninteresting style the varietal adopted as it was popularized and heavily planted.  Bravo Domaine Serene, you have turned my head and produced a Chardonnay of stunning beauty and grace, just like it’s supposed to be.

Note: The wines reviewed here were provided as complimentary press samples.  Information regarding availability, production, or pricing was not available at the time this was published.  The information will be added as it becomes available.

The wines hidden inside brown paper bags came from Fronsac, Castillon, and the Haut Medoc. There were two token wines, one from St. Julien and the other St. Emilion.  The most expensive bottle of 2009 Bordeaux in the lineup was $33 retail, insuring that the evening’s foundation would be poured and hardened sans pedigree. Besides a good look at the vintage’s character, our Boston blind tasting group was poised to hunt value outside the boldly priced classified growths of the undisputed stellar 2009 Bordeaux release.

Great Bordeaux vintages used to be easy to deal with.  Buy the top wines in the best years and lay them away for 10, 20, 50, or 75 years.  That was a no-brainer strategy when first growths like Latour, Haut Brion, and Margaux sold for $50-$75 and second growths like Pichon Lalande cost less than $400 a dozen. Today, the average release price on wine-searcher for one bottle of 2009 Chateau Margaux is $1,352.  Without adjusting purchase patterns, it would be easy to spend $20,000 in every strong vintage on a half dozen cases for the cellar.  Since Bordeaux lives very near the top of the wine food chain in my world, creative acquisition strategies would need to replace shopping lists laden with venerable chateaus.  In the fall of 2011, Neal Martin of the Wine Advocate wrote this after tasting through more than 100 2009 Cru Bourgeois:

…for all those disenfranchised Bordeaux-lovers who vowed never to buy Claret again after facing escalating prices. I would urge you to consider some of the rich pickings to be found. These are wines that are a fraction of the price of the top names, these are wines that are physically available and these are wines that at best, give the Grand Cru Classé a damn good run for their money….They combine Bordeaux classicism with the ripe fruit that the 2009 vintage bestowed, the textures are often silky smooth and many display wonderful delineation, precision and purity on the finish.

Thinking about the glory in Bordeaux, it is impossible to escape the discussion of aging and balance; tannin for structure and its supporting role in aging, fruit for its terroir driven purity and charm, and acidity for the liveliness it gives to the fruit.  While some great vintages showcase riper fruit like 1990 and others more backward tannic cloaked wines like 1986, the best of the best vintages are about impeccable balance. I’ve concluded it’s that balance, along with the natural gifts of the Bordeaux growing region, that allows these wines to age into the gracefully elegant old claret that makes aging Bordeaux a worthwhile endeavor.  We discovered that very signature balance associated with the greatest Bordeaux years in the twelve bottles of humble 2009s we examined next to each other, blind.  If one consistent difference between the greatest chateau and these just might be length of time to maturity, the best of the wines we tasted should deliver magical silky drinking in 10-20 years.

Scanning my notes I noticed repetitive indications of good acidity, manageable tannins, and sweet berry fruit. A friend with one of the finest Bordeaux knowledge banks and tasting acumen despite having grown up in the Languedoc, Jacques, compared these wines to the best of the 2008 vintage; “balanced and nicely rounded….food wines”.  Jacques suggested that the wines would be at their peak in 12-15 years.  The one thing the entire group of 17 seemed to agree on is that the best of the wines we tasted were severe values, and a viable path to filling a piece of the cellar as homage to the ’09 vintage.  For my part, I will be buying the top five wines by the case and laying them away for at least ten years.  Here are some of the highlight wines of the evening:

$31 **** 2009 La Vieille Cure, Fronsac

The evening’s second place wine, and my own favorite wine of the tasting.  The color was the blackest and most opaque of all, with exotic aromas of soy sauce and Szechuan peppercorns, big, ripe, and a lengthy memorable finish.

$24 **** 2009 Chateau Boutisse, St. Emilion

My second favorite wine, but not voted on nor favored by the rest of the group.  Light in color with mocha and tobacco leaf on the nose, the wine combined rich ripe kirsch fruit flavor with a solid finish.  It boasts class and elegance now.

$24 ***1/2 2009 Chateau Bernadotte, Haut Medoc

This was the group’s favorite wine of the night.  I liked the wine, a beautiful perfumed nose, char, rasberry fruit, and excellent acid and tannin levels.

$29 *** Vrai Canon Bouche, Fronsac

While the wine won third place on point votes, it was a highly contested wine with half the group heralding it and the other half stingy in their praise.  I liked the wine for its strength in the mid palate, its richness, and massive mouthfeel.

The only two wines in the group that did not figure into anyone’s recommendations were the Roc and Bouscat Cadus.

Like so many older European winemaking regions, the Languedoc has instigated its own transformation during the last decade as more informed and new generations of winemakers introduced state of the art winemaking technique to showcase local terroir.  The development can not be taken casually since the Languedoc, combined with its southwest neighboring sister region Roussillon, represents more hectares of planted vineyards and total wine production than any other region in the world.  Once known as a simple French country-bulk wine producing region of average quality product, the Languedoc AOC has just split itself into three broad hierarchal classifications that include more than 30 already recognized appellations and designations to help consumers get a better handle on their high quality and value wines.

Consumers are responding as export growth from 2009-2011 has increased more than 20% a year.  But, the growth has not been straightforward nor easy.  Last week at the Boston trade tasting hosted by the Conseil Interprofessionel des Vins du Languedoc (CIVL), top retailer Bin Ends’ proprietor John Hafferty talked about how he needs to hand sell these wines in order to create the consumer discovery, and hopefully regional affinity, that he knows is in the best interests of his customer base.  Besides the small market segment of long time wine geeks who picked through these wines to find quality and value 10-20 years ago, almost nobody comes into Hafferty’s shop looking for this Minervois or that Corbieres.  Still, Hafferty finds a way to sell these expressive value wines by understanding what his customers like about their long time favorite producers and regions, suggesting he likes those very same things, and then presenting strange looking $15 bottles of things like Muscat de Frontignan as substitutes to favorite sweet or other styled wines.

The scope of Languedoc’s vast region creates advantages and challenges on the way to helping consumers embrace the region’s wines.  The influences of the Mediterranean, Atlantic, mountains, heat, garrigue fields, incessant sunshine, and dominant breezes affect each part of the region in different ways.  Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Caragnan, Bourboulenc, Clairette, Piquepoul, Nuscat, Marsanne, Rousanne, Viognier, and Vermentino are just some of the region’s more popular grape varieties, all growing predominantly or differently in one appellation or another.  It is all one big mess for consumers and Languedoc marketers to sort out, since nothing about the bottle labels make it easy for consumers to understand exactly what they have in their hands nor represent any expression of “official” quality hierarchy.  The Languedoc team did a great job of simplifying things with the above terroir chart describing the Mountain, Western, Central, Coastal, and Southern sub AOC character influences on baskets of appellations.

My personal lessons from tasting vast amounts of Languedoc wines at tastings like this over time are ones of variety, surprise, discovery, hidden excitement, and style diversity.  It is no wonder consumers have taken so long to catch on; none of these are “sure thing”nor “old reliable” descriptors.  At this recent Languedoc tasting I was reacquainted with an amazing ***1/2 value from Hecht & Bannier, a new discovery ***1/2 $13 Fabas Minervois Mourral , and a *** serious and pretty $11 rosé 2011 Sainte Eulalie Minervois Printemps d’Euilalie.

The highlight of this tasting of more than 50 Languedoc white, rose, sparkling, and red wines was the portfolio from Chateau des Karantes.  These wines are made only footsteps from the Mediterranean.  From the appellation of La Clape comes the **** $22 2009 Chateau des Karantes Blanc , a magnificent white wine half made from bourboulenc, and almost equal parts of vermentino, grenache blanc, and rousanne in the balance.  A viscous wine with straw field aromas combines with the rest of the nose and flavors of peach and lychee.  The mouthfeel is rich and luscious, but clean and balanced by good acidity.  It reminds me of some of the finest white Chateauneuf du Papes I have tasted.  This wine was a stunning needle in a haystack find at this Languedoc tasting, and something to seek out if you like white wines that are wholly expressive, rich, and balanced by abiding acidity.  The rest of Karantes’ wines including the bubble gum and floral 2011 Rosé, the rougher country, spicy, and balanced 2010 Bergerie, or the big fruit bomb and teeth staining La Clape 2009 Red were all worth buying and drinking.

It is worth getting your trusted retailer to hand sell you his or her favorites.  There are mountains, seas, and garrigue covered fields filled with discovery for anyone that is open to it.

Blind tasting seventeen different examples of 2009 pinot noir in one sitting was repeated evidence, inside twenty five years of steady reminders, that side-by-side peer group blind tasting is the most legitimate format to learn about wine and your personal palate.  In Robert Dwyer’s opening paragraphs of his detailed Wellesley Wine Press tasting note post on this pinot noir extravaganza that our Boston group recently submitted itself to, he gets right to the points of eliminating bias and assumption.

If we can all agree that wine is meant to be enjoyed and not idolized according to label, then blind tasting remains the purest way to test your susceptibility to this sort of predilection in a totally controlled way. California enjoyed a great pinot noir vintage in 2009 and Robert and the rest of us had favorites we already tasted unblind, one at a time.  How would they stack up next to Italian, French, German, and other domestic versions? It is a scary naked moment for passionate wine drinkers with knowledgeable edges.

The wines came from the Sonoma coast, Santa Cruz Mountains, Santa Rita Hills, Anderson Valley, Russian River, Santa Maria Valley, Oregon, Pfalz, Gevrey-Chambertin, and Pavia. I even threw in a ringer grenache from the Santa Barbara Highlands that I swore had the coloration and other characteristics of pinot noir when I tasted it individually three different times (2009 A Tribute to Grace Santa Barbara Highlands Vineyard grenache). A late entry, and not on the list above, was the Calatroni 2010 pinot nero.  Guess what?

With all votes cast blind, the Calatroni at $18 from Italy’s Lombardy wine region tied with the $60 Brewer Clifton Clos Pepe as the group’s favorite wine. Also, the Bouvier Bourgogne at $23 tied the $50 Soujourn Wohler Vineyard for second place. Finally, I was the only person (mainly by color and with the certain advantage of having tasted it before) that was able to pick the grenache out of this all-pinot noir group, and it finished in a 3rd place tie with the $26 Calera.  The $11 Castle Rock was one of four wines that finished tied at the bottom of the voting results, along with the Loring, Belle Glos, and Becker from Germany.

Robert’s post offers intensive tasting notes, so I will spare mine, as different as they might be.  I am not surprised the Brewer-Clifton took a top spot.  The pinots from the Santa Rita Hills are so impressive in most vintages.  Velvet, pretty, round, richly fruited wines that never feel heavy hail from this growing region and the 2009 Brewer-Clifton Clos Pepe held true.  The Calatroni was sheer prettiness with complex flavors, aromas, and old world styling.  It is utterly amazing that this wine is available in the US for $15-$18.  Another great value in second place came from France; Bouvier Bourgogne Le Chapitre.  It was full of coffee, leather, and attractive gaminess.  In third place, but my second place wine, was the Calera.  Medium dark, rich black cherry flavor, herbs, toast, and soy were all in full evidence.  I can not recommend these four wines enough.  Lastly, the grenache made by Angela Osborne is a new take on the variety that I have never witnessed in California.  Light, graceful as in its namesake….it was able to disguise itself as pinot noir.  If you can get your hands on Angela’s wines, you won’t go wrong.

These blind tasting results pointed to value in the US and Europe.  Their worthiness would never have been placed in such supportive context for me without the blind tasting event.  I continue to learn.

One quick scan of my January tasting notes and I immediately knew which three wines produced greater reward than any other.  All are French, two from the southern Rhone Valley and one from Saint-Émilion.  Besides common French ancestry, all three rank as intense values in their own class. The 1994 Vieux Telegraph recompensed fifteen years of patient cellaring, 2005 Perrin et Fils Vacqueyras les Christins was a surprising super star, and 2008 Chateau Boutisse defied its price tag while honoring a stellar 2008 right bank Bordeaux vintage.  I want more of all of them in my cellar and recommend each one individually for its distinct merits and intense drinking pleasure.

**** $55 1994 Vieux Telegraph, Chateauneuf du Pape

I bought this wine for $30 in 1997.  My experiences with Vieux Telegraph always underscored great value in Chateauneuf du Pape but consistently defied early drinking. I remember convincing myself, after repeated disappointments, that I would never open another Vieux Telegraph with less than eight years in the cellar. There was a lot of critical acclaim after the 1994 Vieux Telegraph was released, and while the first bottle I tasted back then (against my better judgment) supported the critics’ hallelujahs, it was tight and expressively stingy, only showing repressed evidence of the characteristic greatness to come.

The wine is magic fifteen years later; truly classic aged wine for a mere $30 investment.  Velvet texture, round edges, summer field herbs, licorice, developed secondary aromatics, robust fruit, anise, char, and a lengthy finish.  It is why I cellar wine and a reminder of similar outcomes I treasure drinking old Claret.  It is the kind of wine I feel privileged to taste; one that warms your soul as it finishes. There are only two bottles left in the cellar and sense both have at least another ten years…for sure.  I am not certain why I plan to pace myself, hoping not to press a bet too far.  I will drink one more in a couple years, and hope this balanced old world wine’s great black cherry fruit will be alive and well in 2023.  You can still buy this wine for about $55.  It’s worth every penny when you consider how much a bottle of great early 90′s Bordeaux fetches in the secondary markets.

*** $20 2008 Chateau Boutisse, Saint-Émilion

Speaking of Bordeaux, I stumbled on this one at the Mohegan Sun Wine Fest Grand Tasting.  Digging up the winner in big tasting events like this where you taste through an ocean of mediocre wine is hard work; like finding a needle in a haystack.  Last year at a 2008 Bordeaux vintage tasting of more than 100 wines, the “mind blowing” performance of so many top Saint-Émilions from that afternoon like Troplong Mondot, Angelus, and Pavie Macquin were top of mind as I tasted this 2008 Boutisse inside one of Connecticut’s gambling meccas.

I ordered a case of the wine the next day.  It’s a $20-a-bottle investment for outstanding age-worthy Bordeaux.  Sweet cherry fruit, smoke, cigar box, balance, structure along with a voluptuous mouthfeel adds up to one of the more outstanding values I have tasted yet from the top appellation (as far as I can tell) of the 2008 Bordeaux vintage.  This is not Troplong Mondot nor Angelus, but it’s a fraction of their price.  I just know when I open one of these bottles in 2032 I will do a little dance…if I still can at 73 years old.

***1/2 $23 2005 Perrin et Fils Vacqueyras les Christins

Our friends Glen and Andrea opened a bottle of this on a relaxed evening in their living room.  Here is another $20 wine, this time from a twenty acre vineyard managed by the Perrin family of Beaucastel.  While I had not tasted this wine before, it was absolutely clear that the four or five years of bottle age was paying dividends. It is drinking as well as it probably ever will.  Fans of brett will appreciate the saddle leather, wet fur, and wild game aromatics that envelope a rich blackberry flavor.  This juxtaposition of funky aromatics and pure blackberry fruit works.  The wine is round and rich with a touch of dusty cocoa.  I sat on the couch and realized I was rechecking the nose every thirty seconds, each time amazed at the amalgamation of things going on inside my glass.  The thrill of the ride outstrips the price tag by a mile, and is a reminder that you don’t need to rely on $75 Chateauneuf du Papes to check in on world class quality wines from the southern Rhone Valley.