Springtime in (the general vicinity of) Paris

Spring's my favorite season.

Watching the world come back to life after the long, cold winter is a personal favorite pastime. In addition to this wine thing, I also have learned to garden a little bit along the way, and watching the tulips come popping out of the ground always give me a sense of accomplishment.

Springtime means we get to be outside again. We get to bask on porches, in parks, on roofs, wherever. I feel a rush of energy and thankfulness when the sun is finally warm on my face again. Here in Vine-land, this winter seemed harder than many. Just seemed to be cold forever, despite our relative lack of snow (until the ten inches we got the first week of March).

Springtime also means we start turning away a bit from the big, bold tannic reds that help fight off the winter chill. It starts to make sense to crack lighter-styled wines again. (Unless you're my uncle Alan who drinks Amarone in the furnace of midsummer.)

The French figured this out a long time ago. Since they've got a wine for any occasion as is, it makes sense to me to look Gaul-ward to celebrate the springing of spring. Admittedly, most of these wines aren't produced within a couple hundred miles of the City of Lights, but work with me, people. Just close your eyes and imagine that you're sitting on a bench in the Jardin de Luxembourg with a baguette, some meat and cheese, and one of these bottles (which, in Paris, you could probably get for less than you paid for the baguette…).

Verget 2004 Bourgogne -- I'm a big fan of Verget wines. For the price and the ease of carrying (since they're all, to my knowledge, Stelvined), you can't beat them. Jean-Marie Guffens, by all accounts, doesn't adhere to many of the "traditional" French winemaking rules, instead finding grapes from all over France to concoct very solid offerings. This white Burgundy (chardonnay) is a very refreshing wine. The nose is apples and flowers, with an undertone of yeast, indicating that the wine has "laid on the lees" (WineSpeak for "sitting on the yeast after fermentation is done") for some time. The flavor is crisply fruity and slightly creamy from the yeast. There's no oak here whatsoever, and the finish is a little acidic. Delicious just to drink on its own, but soars when paired with roast chicken or any kind of lighter soup. $10-12.

Domaine Guindon Coteaux D'Ancenis 2006 Gamay Rosé -- This wine is made from the same grape as Beaujolais. I'd never had a Gamay as a rosé before, so I was curious. This Gamay comes from the Loire valley rather than its traditional home in Burgundy. It turns out to be a very fruity, medium-bodied rose. Nose of raspberries and a little bit of a floral scent. Flavor is berry and cherry with a nice, balanced acidity and some mineral flavors. The finish is clean but not extraordinarily sharp. There's nothing complicated about this wine and it's not as acidic as I've found many of rosés to be. It's simply an extremely pleasant patio or picnic wine -- a great pairing with cheeses and cold meats. $10-12

La Noble 2005 Chardonnay -- Not a true white Burgundy, since it's from the south of France, but it's definitely put together in that tradition. There's no oak to this wine whatsoever, going instead as a crisp, clean sipper. The wine has a somewhat appley nose. The taste is classic French chardonnay -- a little sour apple, a little citrus, and a little mineral coupling with a medium body. The finish is minerally and very dry. Another great choice for a picnic, since it'll pair with just about anything that you can pack in a basket. An excellent choice with shellfish or chicken, also. I've found this regularly for $8-9 -- simply a great value for a wine like this.

Georges DeBoeuf 2006 Morgon Cru du Beaujolais -- I would have preferred to do a pinot noir based wine here, but I couldn't find a Burgundy for $15 or less. George DeBoeuf has enough of my money as it is with my Beaujolais fetish, so what's one more bottle, right? If I had to find a Beaujolais to stand in for an inexpensive pinot, this one will work. I've shied away from GDB wines for ahile, since they seem to have such a corner on the market these days. I think they've started to realize that they can't just put out generic plonk anymore and have started taking a little more care, especially with their "cru" wines. DeBoeuf makes these in a bigger, fruitier style than my summertime staple Beaujolais-Villages. The nose is full of cherry and vanilla. The body is slightly fuller than "regular" Beaujolais, but considerably more complex. Nice balance of fruit and acidity with a little bit of oak at the end. The finish is fruity and pleasant. You could have this with a spicy Thai meal or chicken parmesan. Or just have it on its own as a porch wine. For $11-13, a solid offering.

Enjoy the sunshine…finally!

"Crap! What did I do to myself?"

Hangovers -- a hazard of the occupation.

No one can work with wine without tipping back too much from time to time. The morning after. The headache, the nausea, and the sun, as Nicholas Klar wrote, "is like God's flashlight." Nobody to blame but yourself.

But what if the pain isn't your fault? What if you only had a glass or two and your head feels like John Bonham has been using your forehead for a snare? I've had more than one person say to me, "I like red wine -- but I can't drink it. If I even sip the stuff, I get a massive headache." At the wine salon, two different people told me versions of that very thing. The "red wine headache" is a not uncommon malady. I wanted to see if, as a public service, I could track down the cause. After all, what good is wine if you can't enjoy it?

The first explanation I generally stumble across: "It's the sulfites in the wine! Red wine has all these sulfites in the U.S. I've gone to [insert European country of your choice here] and the wine doesn't have sulfites in it, so I can drink it just fine. And I can drink white wine until the cows come home, but red wines just lay me out." So, to cover my bases, I decided to go with an imported white wine. I used Il Palazzone 2006 Orvieto Classico Superiore Terre Vineate for this. ($10-13) It's a very flavorful white wine. (Side note: I'm warming more and more to Italian whites these days.) This wine has a nose of flowers and licorice. It's medium bodied with some soft citrusy flavors and a little bit of oak. It has a very easy finish. Tasty to drink on its own, but with shellfish or a light fish dish, it's very nice.

I thought I'd solved the mystery. Find unsulfited wines and you're fine, right? There are some of them out there. Unfortunately, a little more research turned up one very interesting fact: White wines almost always have more sulfites than red wines.

There is such a thing as a sulfite allergy -- it usually causes breathing problems. It's also a pretty rare condition. These are generally people who can't eat dried fruit and the like, since it causes them breathing problems. Why more sulfites in whites? Sulfites are used as preservatives. Red wine has a natural preservative built in, generally. Tannin. Wines that age well are usually tannic, so…maybe avoiding tannic wines might stop the headaches.

For a low tannin wine, I used DuBoeuf Domaine de Grand Croix 2006 Brouilly Beaujolais. ($10-13) This wine is darker in color and somewhat richer than many Beaujolais. It sports a fairly strong nose of cherries and blackberries. There's plenty of fruit balanced nicely with a solid acidity. Nice crisp finish, too. It cuts nicely through spices. I made a Thai beef noodle soup with it, and it was very tasty.

Tannins are known to cause a release of serotonin in the brain. High levels of serotonin can trigger a migraine. However, wine's not the only source of tannin in a diet, and no one's ever complained of a tea or chocolate headache. So, back to the drawing board.

A third possibility is histamines. Histamines can trigger an allergic reaction in some people, brought on by a lack of a certain enzyme in the bloodstream. This reaction can cause headaches, as well as flushing or runny nose. The levels of histamines in red wines are between 20-200% higher than in whites. Spanish reds are often lower in histamines, so I went with the Martin Codax 2005 "Ergo" Rioja Tempranillo. ($10-12) The Codax albarino went very well with New Year's dinner for us, and the Tempranillo was also quite positive. The nose was of dark fruit and spices, almost like cherry cobbler. The wine's lighter than it smells. Some nice berry flavors and well-balanced light tannins.The finish is easy and somewhat dry.

Histamines seem to be a somewhat more likely culprit for these headaches, although there hasn't been conclusive research on low vs. high histamine wines. Even so, defense against histamines may fight off some of the headaches. A person can drink a cup of strong black tea before drinking red wine. A compound in black tea suppresses a histamine response. Aspirin before drinking can also help, although aspirin after the headache kicks in won't help. An antihistamine might stop the headache. However, because of the alcohol, you might be in for a very short night if you pop a Benadryl and down a couple of glasses of wine.

If you are one of those unfortunate souls that suffer from "red wine headaches," there's a simple (potentially painful) test. Drink half a glass of red wine. If the wine is truly the cause of your headache, then you'll get one within 15 minutes. Otherwise, it's not the wine -- it's probably the amount of it that you drank that fateful night. B-12, Gatorade, ginger ale, and a sub from Penn Station the next morning are better bets to help you out. If you determine that it's actually the wine causing your suffering, try the black tea or the aspirin. After all, why should headsplitting pain be a barrier from enjoying the good stuff?

h/t to Dr. Tom for the post title...

Wine for Thanksgiving

Hard to believe it's been a year since the last time I looked at wines for the Most Gluttonous Time Of The Year. Lots of calories under the bridge since then. We're again faced with the same dilemma -- big table, many family members with various issues, wildly varied foods, and a need for wines to please everyone.

Good luck.

Actually, there are a number of wines that would work just fine with almost any table. Since thinking basic is a good idea, there's a lot of decent product that will work. A few possibilities follow. And, like last year, if you find yourself cooking -- I still recommend a flask of Maker's Mark stashed inconspicuously behind the potato masher.

Paringa 2004 Sparkling Shiraz -- Full disclosure -- this was the first alcoholic sparkling red I've ever tried. I'd heard sparkling shiraz mentioned as a flexible wine, and I was quite curious, since I couldn't quite put "Shiraz" and "sparkling" together in my mind. If you drink this wine thinking "Shiraz," you're in for a shock. The strong fruit and slight sweetness of Shiraz gets amplified. While the wine was a little bit sweeter than I usually take, it was still very interesting. The nose is crisp, with a little blueberry. The flavor is soft. It's sweet, but there's a little bit of tannin running underneath. The finish is very crisp for a wine this sweet. If you put it with the typical Thanksgiving table -- roast turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and such -- it would really shine. There are enough interesting notes in here to echo almost anything you'll find in the food. If you pick it up at another time of year, have it as a brunch wine. Fruits (we had it with cherries and chocolate covered blueberries) match this wine very well. $10.

Covey Run 2005 Gewürztraminer -- What can I say, I'm still a sucker for wines with umlauts. While Riesling is probably more flexible, if you've got a group that wants something a little different or if you're with a group that doesn't know better, bust out a Gewürz. It'll be fun for people to try to pronounce after a couple of glasses, at the very least. This offering from Washington is a really flavorful wine, starting you with a nose of honey and apples. The body is quite full and fruity, and it's not as peppery as many of its cousins. I generally prefer them with a little more spice, but this will be much more accessible to a larger group. More importantly, it does have enough acidity to stand up to most foods. It will compliment almost anything that you might think to cook, unless you're going to do a beef roast or something along those lines. For $8-9, you'll get a bottle you can use either with dinner or as an aperitif.

Louis Jadot 2006 Beaujolais-Villages -- A quick side note here. I wanted to do a Beaujolais as one of the wines, since that's a classic pairing. I was struck immediately when I checked that section of the aisle at the sheer number of Beaujolais cru that were available. If you remember, those are the ones made in particular towns in the region and are supposed to be the "top of the line." Then I noticed -- every single one of them was from Georges Dubeouf. I shouldn't have a prejudice, since his wines are generally very quaffable -- but with this onslaught of cru, I was skeptical. I followed my instinct and took the one bottle of Beaujolais among the dozen or so that wasn't from dear ol' Georges. I wasn't disappointed. A friendly, nice nose of strawberries and cherries. Those scents are echoed in the body of the wine. The tannins are light, and the acidity's not too strong. A good all around red wine to just straight-up drink or that will work with most anything you'll have on the table. Only $6-7, so you can load up and not break the bank.

Gnarly Head 2005 Old Vine Zinfandel -- "Come on, Mike," a friend of mine said, "You do these wines for big groups and parties, and you do things that will appeal to the middle of the road. But Thanksgiving is a big ass meal, so you need a big ass wine. What would you do?" With a gauntlet like that thrown down, you need a red wine where people will know that they're drinking A Red Wine. Still, you have to have appeal for lots of folks, and it does have to go with what you're serving. One wine raises its hand -- Zinfandel. Specifically, big, cranking California Zin. The Gnarly Head fills the bill perfectly. The very definition of a "fruit bomb," this wine announces its presence with authority. Lots of big plummy scents lead you to a huge fruity body. There's a little tannin and a little oak in there somewhere, and you catch hints of it on the finish -- but it's largely a big wine that would pair with big flavors. Most Thanksgiving tables would be perfect. At close to 15% alcohol, it'll liven up any party. $10.

Enjoy the gorging, enjoy the wine, enjoy the football, and celebrate the family. Whether tied by blood or by love, they're what makes us us. Raise a glass.

"Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé!" (Now go away.)

If you've walked into a wine store anytime since November 16, you've undoubtedly seen a brightly colored display, proclaiming "Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé!" filled with a bunch of fancy bottles, likely from Georges DuBeouf. I'd be shocked if you haven't seen it.

A Vine reader asked me if I was going to write about this year's crop of Nouveau, so let me give a little backstory behind this wine and why its "arrival" is such a big deal before I get to them.

Beaujolais Nouveau are made from the same grape as regular Beaujolais -- gamay. These wines are fermented extremely quickly through a process called "carbonic maceration." In layman's terms, they throw the grapes into the fermenter whole, and the weight of the grapes themselves does the crushing. Most of the fermentation happens to the juice while still inside the skin. As carbon dioxide is released by the fermentation process, the bubbles speed the alcohol production and helps gravity stomp the grapes. An entire batch of Beaujolais Nouveau can be fermented in as little as three days.

The tradition of drinking this young wine started in the villages of the Beaujolais region, where people would draw jugs of wine out of the fermenting casks. This wine was to hold folks over until the actual Beaujolais was ready, several months later. This "first batch" of wine was a great excuse for a party, and villages would have festivals surrounding the sharing of this new wine. Eventually, word of this little tradition got out -- since everyone wants to be festive. A rush started to see who could get wines out first. Eventually, the French government stepped and in 1951, this wine was made an "official" varietal -- with a release date of November 15th. Georges Dubeouf came along in the 1960's and started to publicize the release of the wine widely -- and it's now become a worldwide, rather than a regional, day of excitement.

Beaujolais are light wines to begin with, but Beaujolais Nouveau takes this to a whole other level. These are extremely young, uncomplicated wines. They are not really made to go with food. As I said, they're made to be festival wines, drunk from jugs as people dance around in the streets. You certainly don't have to think much about how these taste.

The official release date is now the third Thursday in November -- which was November 16th this year. This date obviously coincides with Thanksgiving, so people buy this wine to take to familial repasts. This year, I could only find two Beaujolais Nouveau in my local stores. Here they are:

Georges DuBeouf 2006 Beaujolais Nouveau -- the most ubiquitous Beaujolais Nouveau on the market. DuBeouf shells out plenty of cash to assure that the world wine market is properly flooded with the Nouveau. You can find this wine…well…everywhere. The nose is very light and fruity -- the usual cherry notes of Beaujolais are in there somewhere. The first taste doesn't give you very much, but it expands to a little fruitiness…which unfortunately is still too young to get much more than an inkling. I guess you could say that there's some cherry flavor there with a little bit of licorice. Finish is dry with a little fruit. The body is very light. You could basically drink this like water if you were so inclined. You can find this for $9-11 anywhere.

Joseph Drouhin 2006 Beaujolais Nouveau -- this is a darker and fuller wine than the DuBoeuf and seems much more like a wine that could be more than simply slugged back. Some light berry flavors on the nose. The Drouhin tastes a little more "done" than many Nouveau I've tried. There's a slight smoky flavor to start, but that turns to a tart cherry flavor, which leads into a fruity finish that I wouldn't expect in a nouveau. This wine finishes dry but not tannic (as most Nouveau have very little tannin). If this wine is any indication, make sure that you look for the actual 2006 vintage of this winemaker. I have a feeling you won't be sorry. This will run about $12-14.

That said…

I'll be honest…it's not my favorite wine. I think there's really not much to it -- but as I’ve said, uncomplicated wines don't scare me. However, uncomplicated wines shouldn't cost an arm and a leg. Beaujolais Nouveau was very inexpensive for a long time. Over the last few years, since the release has become an event and there's money to be made, the price has skyrocketed.

There are some wine aficionados who say that the Nouveau holds the secrets of the upcoming year's Beaujolais vintage. That may be -- but I'd rather wait and see for myself. In my opinion, there's no reason to spend $12 on a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau if you can spend $6-8 on a Beaujolais-Villages (or heck, drop the $12 on a cru!) and get a far superior wine for your money. But don't just take my word for it. Do a side-by-side tasting and see for yourself.

The Vine will be taking a week's hiatus for Thanksgiving and to give my liver a rest. See you in December, everyone!

Until next time…enjoy the Thanksgiving sales, and please don't riot over the Playstation 3.

Beaujolais -- It leads to harder stuff...

Beaujolais is seductive -- the quintessential "gateway wine." Many casual wine drinkers who find red wines "too strong" often give Beaujolais a try at some point -- only to find themselves drawn inexorably into the world of berries and tannins. Before long, such a person is planning trips to Sonoma, building shelves for a wine cellar, and debating the merits of merlot over cabernet for their rare strip steak. Not that I'd know anything about that.

Beaujolais is also the perfect gateway for an introduction into about French wines. France is the leading producer of wine in the world, followed closely by Italy. France churns out around two billion gallons of wine per year. France alone produces more wine per year than the US, Spain, Argentina, and Australia combined. The French have been at this a long time, and their wines are the world's most famous (although the Italians might argue with that assessment).

In America, we're used to classifying wine by varietal -- merlot, cabernet, chardonnay, etc. In France, a wine’s primary classification is the region where the wine is produced. Chablis, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Rhone -- these are all French regions. Beaujolais is a district within Burgundy. When the California wine industry started pumping out jug wine, "Burgundy" and "Chablis" came to by synonymous with cheap red or white wine when, in actuality, some of the best pinot noirs and chardonnays in the world come from those respective regions. To know what you're getting when you purchase many French wines, you have to become at least passingly familiar with the major grapes grown in a particular region.

Beaujolais is one of the few red wines from Burgundy that's not pinot noir. Beaujolais is made from a grape varietal called Gamay. Gamay produces a wine that's generally light in body, somewhat fruity, and very easy to drink. Beaujolais is a light enough red that you can often serve it interchangeably with white wines. There are certain classes of Beaujolais, however, that have enough body to stand up to grilled red meats. Many Beaujolais taste best when served slightly chilled, making them an ideal summer red.

Now, regarding those classifications I just mentioned. The French are meticulous about categorizing wine. They have a strict system for classifying their wines based on region, history, grape varietal, winemaking techniques, alcohol content, and various other factors known as the "Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée" or AC. Within each region, a wine's AC definition usually provides a good baseline for determining the quality of a wine. In the Beaujolais AC, there are three basic classifications, in ascending order of quality and price:

Beaujolais -- These wines are produced from grapes grown anywhere within the Beaujolais region.
Beaujolais-Villages -- These wines are produced from grapes grown in one of thirty-nine villages in the southern part of the region, known to produce consistently high quality wine.
Beaujolais Cru -- There are ten villages known to produce the best wine in the region, and the wines are designated simply by the name of the town. Moulin-A-Vent is generally considered the best of the bunch, but there's not a lot of drop-off from there to the other nine. (Brouilly, Côte-de-Brouilly, Chénas, Chiroubles, Fleurie, Juliénas, Morgon, Saint Amour, and Régnié are the others.) Many of these wines do not have "Beaujolais" anywhere prominently on the label -- so if you see what appear to be random French names in the Beaujolais section, chances are you're looking at a cru.

Here are examples of each:

Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Reservé 2005 – One reviewer called Georges Duboeuf the “benevolent dictator of Beaujolais” – fully 30% of the region’s production are Duboeuf wines. This wine will jump off the shelf at you because of its multicolored “painted” bottle. "Reservé" has little meaning in this context – it refers mainly to the fact that these grapes weren't shipped out as Beaujolais nouveau (I’ll touch on that a bit later). The nose of this wine carries a strong strawberry scent, with an undertone of slightly burnt toast. Even though this is a fairly light wine, there's a fair amount of tannin on the "attack" (WineSpeak for "what you get on the first taste of the wine") which moves on a tart blackberry taste. The finish has some citrus to it, as well as a continuation of the tannin. This wine is light, a little dry and, I think, best enjoyed by itself on a warm day, assuming you’ve chilled it a bit first. You could serve it as an aperitif, or pair it with a medium flavored cheese and crackers. Probably about $6-8.

Louis Jadot 2004 Beaujolais-Villages -- A very "fresh" smelling wine -- a little mineral, blackberries, and licorice. This wine has a very earthy character for such a light wine, coupled with more of a smooth berry taste and a little pepper. The finish is mildly dry, but contains a refreshing tartness. This is $8-11. I had this one with a light dinner of artichoke, tomato, and white bean bruschetta and it worked wonderfully. It was light enough not to overpower the fresh tomatoes, but still had enough body to hold its flavor afterwards. It's a very flexible wine -- you could put this up against chicken, pork, hamburgers, lighter red sauces -- and it would still do fairly well. If you have a large group coming over for dinner, this isn't a bad idea to have around -- because it's something for everyone. It's an ideal Thanksgiving wine, for instance.

Georges Duboeuf 2003 Beaujolais Chiroubles -- Back to Duboeuf again, since it was the only Beaujolais cru I could find in my local wine store at present. This one has a much more pronounced nose of cherries and plums. There's hardly any tannin on the tongue when you taste it -- and those berry flavors last a long time. The body is markedly fuller than the other two wines. The finish is light, crisp, and slightly tart. While you can certainly give this wine a slight chill -- there's enough body to carry the fruit tastes, so you can drink it at room temperature if you like. I'd put this with grilled tuna, chicken in any kind of sauce (like coq a vin), veal, or even kabobs and Mexican food. Crus can also be aged for a couple of years, but the 2003 I found was probably about as old as you'd want to drink a Beaujolais. The others should be consumed within a year or two. This will probably be $11-14 or thereabouts.

A couple of other quick notes: Around the globe, there's a huge rush every year on the third Thursday of November to snatch up a wine called Beaujolais Nouveau. 65 million bottles, almost half of the region's production, gets sold in the several weeks following. Beaujolais Nouveau goes from barrel to bottle to store in a matter of weeks. This wine should not be confused with regular Beaujolais – it’s an entirely different animal. This wine is incredibly light (some would almost say watery) and fruity. There's not enough time for the tannins (or much else, really) to get engaged in this wine, so you end up with a "sluggable" product. Beaujolais Nouveau is not a wine to be savored -- it's a party wine. That, of course, doesn't mean that it's not fun to get caught up in the rush of the world running out to snag a bottle. You want to drink this as soon as you get it.

Second, although most French wines are sold by regional classification, some French producers have begun putting the varietal name on exported wine. For a number of reasons, France actually is in the midst of a wine glut – and is trying to improve their wineries’ marketing, especially among inexpensive wines. Since most consumers don’t know offhand, for instance, that a white wine from Burgundy is going to be a chardonnay. I haven’t tried any of these “new labels” yet – perhaps down the line.

Until next time…À votre santé!