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Grape 50: Cserszegi Fűszeres

August 27, 2011 in cserszegi fuszeres, hungary, white, white wine, wine | 1 comment


Explanation Essential
Cserszegi Fűszeres requires a lot of explanation. There’s one bottle and one bottle only that I’ve ever seen with this grape (yes, this is a grape, not a Polish hot dish). Might be the only bottle in the USA also as the importer shows up as hit #3 when you google the grape name.

Pronounce Please
So, first things first – pronunciation. Cserszegi Fűszeres is “chair-say-ghy, foo-seh-resh.” Chair, say, ghy – foo, seh, resh. Even saying it out loud is on the difficult side. Personally, I picture a sage Ali G sitting on a chair saying “foo, seh, resh.” It’s the only way to remember this grape. Difficult, foo-seh-resh.

Ali G in a Chair
Then, where does this impossible to pronounce Ali G arrive from? Hungary, land of famed dessert wines and unknown white wines. This is one of those unknown white wines, much harder to remember than Furmint, that’s for sure. Chair, Ali G – Foo seh resh.

European Indiana
Hungary, though not a large country (it’s slightly smaller than Indiana), does have several wine regions. But then, the same can be said for Indiana. Hungary though boasts 22 wine regions dotted across its Indiana-shaped hide. One of those 22 regions even produces the most-awesomely-named wine: “Bull’s Blood.” If you ever find yourself in the Eger region of Hungary, ask for Bull’s Blood. Please report back.

Neszmely
Today’s wine comes from Neszmely, better known as the region on the edge of Hungary that’s almost in Slovakia. Not Slovenia – that’s the other side. Slovakia, featured in Eurotrip as the country of post-Communist gloom and splendor. Next to Slovakia, one finds Neszmely, an hour’s drive north of Budapest.

Detail Up!
2009 Hilltop Winery “Craftsman” Cserszegi Füszeres from Neszmely, Hungary

Taste
Full, round nose of peaches – smells like a big bodied white but *trickery* it tastes really acidic with grapefruit and lemon coming out swinging an enormous bat. Disjointed as it sounds, it’s great for that bait-and-switch shock that your wino-friend never expected. Well played, Cserszegi Fűszeres, well played.

Personally, not my favorite white. I don’t like being tricked and this one sucker-punched me. Sure, I’ll go back for seconds and see if it’s just this bottle and not the grape. Might get punched again – we’ll see.

Google Randoms:
* Cserszegi Fűszeres has Gewurtz as a parent – hence, the big Cyrano nose.
* Cserszegi Fűszeres received the award for “White Wine of the Year“… in Britain… in 1998.
* Listen to the legend of Bull’s Blood – invading marauders and children be afraid.

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Grape 49: Barbera

August 19, 2011 in barbera, italy, red wine, wine | 2 comments

Memory, all alone in the Mooooon-light
Certain wines take you back – to specific, memorable moments complete with cherubs, picnics and wooded vales. Barbera is that wine for me, except the cherubs are replaced by parking lots and the wooded vales were clear-cut for a strip mall. Welcome to Suburbia – Picnics still allowed.

As bleak as that sounds, the restaurant at the edge of the strip mall next to the flat expanse of concrete was excellent. Rosso Pizza – look it up if you’re ever in Santa Rosa, California. Consueldo, Exacto and I plopped down and immediately opened the menu (yes, the WINE menu – our priorities are straight) to decide what to order. We asked the waitress about a local wine with an English grandmother name “Barbera” and… it happened.

Rosso Waitress
Never before has a waitress verbally orgasmed in front of three unsuspecting guests at Rosso Pizza in Santa Rosa. Words like “God,” “unbelievable,” “sooooo good,” “THE BEST,” “love,” “amazing” spewed out between moans of ecstasy. Sitting in the strip mall next to the parking lot, we felt a little awkward being in public… and near children. Still, we ordered two.

Thanks to that energetic waitress, Barbera is forever seared into my mind. And it’s a good thing too as it’s the kind of wine that tickles the food fancy. Not too big and overpowering, seems to work with pretty much anything carb-related and fairly easy to find – this is Barbera.

Barbera’s Summer Home
Unbeknownst to this wino, Barbera shows up all over the place, not just in California pizza joints. Italian sailors couldn’t get enough of Barbera and took it with them wherever they landed. New World, meet Old Italians. Even though it’s original home is Piedmont, up in the northwest of Italy, the New World is Barbera’s summer home. Argentina received more than its fair share of Italians back in the 20th century immigration wave and, true to form, they had loads of Barbera (sadly, no more). Brazil, Australia, the US and Uruguay all received big influxes of Italians and all have grown Barbera with delight.

Grape Joys
One of the joys of the grape is that it produces lots of fruit. Plus, it can be harvested early so a late frost isn’t going to destroy your crop and leave you with nothing but water for the winter. To top it off, the tannins are on the lower side so it’s easy to drink young and with food. No waiting around for your unborn child’s college graduation on this wine – bottoms up!

Taste
Notes from the wine(s) ordered at Rosso kept it simple and could sum up what’s best in a food wine. “Cherry, violets, medium body with long finish and some spice – really excellent.” Should have added, “totally worth the public embarrassment. NSFW.”

Detail Up!
UNTI Barbera 2009 from the Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma, California (thanks for the image UNTI guys)

Random Googles
* Italian reds in three words: Sangiovese, Montepulciano and Barbera. Numbers #1, 2 and 3, in order of how much acreage Italians devote to the vines.
* They don’t make learning wines easy in Italy. Barbera synonyms include: Barbera Mercantile, Gaietto, Besgano, Ughetta and (my favorite) Barber a Raspo.
* Hanna-Barbera. Not hard to guess what language Hanna’s partner grew up speaking at home.

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Grape 48: Petit Verdot

August 17, 2011 in red, red wine, usa, wine | 2 comments


Minor Key of Grapes
Minor grapes are usually minor for a reason. Too acidic, too tannic, too sexy for your glass. Once in a great while, minor grapes also produce minor miracles. Think Cahors – a grape headed for extinction in France that takes an ocean voyage in its junior year of college to “discover itself” and ends up in Argentina. Goodbye Cahors, hello Malbec!

Petit Bordeaux
Petit Verdot is one such minor grape that gets buried at the bottom of the wine label, in the part that nobody reads except those really fastidious, tedious wine geeks searched for their pH buzz. Try and name the grapes that go into classic, famous Bordeaux. Cabernet – check. Merlot – check. Ummmmmm…. Cabernet Franc? Yes. And some others – correct. Turns out those “others,” at least in the red Bordeaux, are Malbec/Cahors and Petit Verdot (RIP Carmenere). Petit What? – correct.

Petit Out of Favor
Petit Verdot has that too _____ flaw. In this Mad Libs experiment, the ________ is “late-ripening” so it’s been falling out of favor in the old world faster than Greeks at a Central Banker retreat. New Worlds have new ways however, and the US, Argentina and Chile have taken up the banner of the crestfallen Petit Greek. California is one of the biggest producer since they’re big into Meritage wines that seek to replicate the Bordeaux blends and often do just that. 1976 – a great year for the California wine industry. Happy Birthday USA!

Taste
Minor no more, this is Petit Verdot in its 100% pure form. Ah-hem… this is rare. Not blended, not subsumed, this is Petit Verdot stepping out from the background. Ringo, please take this solo. We’ll manage the cymbal.

So, what’s Ringo do with his solo? He goes dark, very dark. Dark in the glass, dark in the mouth. Thinking blackberry and that black British currant jam they sell at overpriced supermarkets. Really pretty balanced and full… at least until you try tasting it after a couple California Cabs – then it feels thin and anorexic. Moral of the story – save your Cabs for another day and focus on the wine at hand. This one’s an impressive, rare example.

Detail Up!
100% Petit Verdot 2008 Ferrari Carano from the USA out in Dry Creek Sonoma, California

Random Googles
* Peh-teet ver-dough. Sounds way hotter (and more pastry-like) than it’s spelled.
* Keep an eye on Virgina – not just for all those presidents it turned out. It’s now looking to be a big Petit Verdot player.
* Ros̩ Petit Verdot Рapparently, it exists. And is even pretty good, according to this guy.

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Grape 47: Muscat of Alexandria

August 14, 2011 in dessert wine, france, muscat, muscat of alexandria, white, white wine, wine | 6 comments

Confusing Muscat
Muscat is really confusing. You think you know it because Muscat has that hear-me-roar smell that makes even aromatic wines like Gewurtz and Riesling bow in admiration. Truly, if there is a smelly wine king, Muscat is he.

Fecund as a Father, a Founding Father
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a king, Muscat is also incredibly fertile and has more offspring than Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson combined. And yes, this fecundity makes for very awkward family reunions. Worse still, Muscat is a mutant so image some shape-shifting virile Founding Father and you have an idea who this Muscat character actually is.

Someone told me there are nine Muscat families, presumably all somehow related and trading on Mr. Muscat’s namesake. On this blog, we’re up to Muscat #3 – Muscat of Alexandria. History buffs will already be able to tell where this grape comes from and which queen quaffed this grape before the asp had the last word.

Brewer in the Muscat Family
Muscat of Alexandria is apparently the unscented Muscat of the family who bathes often and refuses perfume like many of his brethren and sistern. He would be perfect to work at a sake brewery, where even the faintest hint of a smell gets into the sake. Muscat would not be in your sake.

No Mancloud of Muscat
As with most unscented men (Mr. Zapato excepted), he’s not that popular. Women like the tall, dark and scented men who wear Italian cut shirts and ferment each more in cologne. Men who love to ride elevators just to asphyxiate lesser mortals who haven’t yet developed the ability to travel in clouds of Acqua di Gio. Muscat of Alexandria spends most of his time at the table wine section, probably busing the tables of his more odoriferous Muscat relatives.

Allez cuisine!
Thankfully, with the right TLC from Mother Nature, there are regions where Muscat of Alexandria reigns supreme in regal dessert wine splendor. Setúbal, Banyuls and Malaga – three tiny regions that won’t be on your wine map unless your wine map is much better than the crayola-marked version hanging on my wall. Setúbal makes a dessert wine called “Moscatel de Setúbal” – spoiler alert, it’s Muscat of Alexandria. Banyuls is in France, literally spitting distance from Spain, and makes its dessert wine from Muscat of Alexandria – its wine’s name, being French, is the same as the location – Banyuls. Malaga takes its Muscat of Alexandria, swirls it with the sherry grape Pedro Ximenez, and punches out the third of the Muscat of Alexandria dessert wines. To the best of my knowledge, none of these have a picture of Cleopatra VII on their bottles.

Taste
This particular wine is from the Banyuls region and, true to form, is a sweet dessert wine. Thanks to the good folks at Claret Wine Bar in Sunnyside, Queens, which is easily the best wine bar in a three neighborhood radius, we know this featured wine is 70% Muscat of Alexandria and 30% Muscat Petit Grain (aka millions of other names). For this wine, we’re talking lots of apple smell, extremely sweet taste and a big taste of apricot and some other fruits that better tasters would be able to identify.

Detail Up!
Muscat de Rivesaltes “La Prieure de la Vin” 2009 from Banyuls in Languedoc-Roussillon, France

Random Googles:
* Muscat de Rivesaltes (confusingly made from two grapes also named Muscat) is a French dessert wine with an elfin cousin who only appears around Christmastime – Muscat de Noël.
* South Africans call this grape “Hanepoot” and somebody at Jo-burg thinks it’s a Pan-African panacea.
* Wisconsin, one of 50 states in the US to produce wine, puts Muscat of Alexandria at the top of its wine tourism blurb. Strangely, they fail to mention cheese.

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Grape 46: Tsolikauri

July 21, 2011 in georgia, tsolikauri, white, white wine | 1 comment

Madness in Pie Slices
Trivial Pursuit leads men mad. Sure, it’s easy enough to get the Orange “Sports” pie slice. Random history learned in the fourth grade can net you the yellow slice but you’re still four away from victory. Plus, unless lightning strikes and Teddy Roosevelt appears with big stick in hand, it’s impossible to answer the Pink slice – “Entertainment.” Really, it should be re-branded as “Slice of Un-American Entertainment” and denounced for the pinko card-carrying it is.

Blue Pie Peaches
Fortunately, there’s now one slice that you’ll be able to answer – Blue. Geography. Because this slice will inevitably lead to the question of which state is also a country. And you’ll know – because you drink wine and remember Ty Cobb as the “Georgia Peach” from your Orange pie slice glory days.

Georgia – a country
Enter the country of Georgia. Nestled against the soothing belly of Mother Bear Russia and topping Turkey, that land of many grape vines (3X as many as South Africa!) and notably few wines (sigh….), this is a country. Not a country of ______ or a country known for _______. Just a country – and that’s enough because it’s had a hard enough time attaining even that title.

Tis-so-a-cow, Rhee
On top of that, Georgia is a country that makes wine from its grapes, like Russia and unlike Turkey. You’ll be a better man than I (more likely to garner the Pink pie slice for sure), if you know this grape name. In fact, I’d buy you a pie if you can pronounce it. Tis-so-lih-cow-ri? Who knows? Who would confirm it?

Old, Old Wines
Georgians will confirm it and they’re out in the tweeter-verse. They’ll tell you Tsolikauri is one of the most planted grapes in the country in a country has grown wine for over 8,000 years (not a typo). They’ll tell you it’s one of the highest quality grapes the country offers out of the more than 400 grapes it grows. They just won’t tell you that it was one of Stalin’s favorites because then they’d have to explain that Stalin was born in Georgia and that gets awkward because you already have your yellow pie slice and you know he killed lots of people. Not over wine or anything but still. It’s awkward.

Taste
The taste of Tsolikauri is pretty much different and different in a really good way from other wines this wino has tried. We’re talking peach with a sweet smell (ok, kinda similar), medium body with medium sweetness (still kinda the same) but then there’s the difference. This Tsolikauri seems like it’d be high alcohol since it’s riding around your mouth in a go-kart made from white port and summer riesling. You’re thinking it’s going down in high-alcohol infused blue flame but no – this wine brakes and clock in at only 10.5% alcohol. Slow, long victory lap featuring more peach and cries of joy ensue from the audience ensue.

Detail Up!
Marani 2005 of the Tvishi controlled appellation made in Racha-Lechkhumi region in Georgia – for a 2005 white, this bottle (surprisingly) had plenty of life too.

Random Googles:
* One blog, righteously called Fringe Wine, describes Georgia as its “first real discovery” – a pretty solid compliment from someone called Fringe Wines
* Tsolikauri is one of the big grapes used in Georgia, along with Rkatsiteli, Tsitska, Mtsvane, Tetra, Krakhuna and others (sidebar – it’s great fun saying these aloud and loudly)
* Those cool looking jugs on the label you see above is a big part of Georgian wine culture (yup, it’s way older than expected) – they stick that jug in the ground to keep the wine cool while it ages… for years. Called a “Qvevri”

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