Archive for March, 2017

CheckMate Artisanal Winery (www.checkmatewinery.com) in the Okanagan Valley British Columbia Canada is getting global exposure plus admiring respect for their quality chardonnays. It is an exciting new project by the Von Mandl family led by winemaker & GM Phil Mcgahan (Queensland Australia lawyer turned intellectual winemaker ex-Williams Selyem in Sonoma). Their focus is on micro-blocks of 7 acres from 3 family owned Estate vineyards (40+ year old vines from gravelly alluvial Heritage Vineyard on Golden Mile Bench; porous soils low yielding Barn Vineyard on Black Sage Bench planted 1999; and Border Vista Vineyard on Osoyoos East Bench right at the USA border with Dijon grape clones planted in 1997 on warm sandy soils that nonetheless maintain best acidity) with the first vintage 2013 resulting in 5 small production chardonnays ranging from just 1 oval barrel to 17 barrels.

There is a Grand Master Set of these 5 bottles from 2013 selling for $520 on the website which includes:

1. Queen Taken $125 – Heritage Vineyard SW Oliver 40 year vines on Golden Mile shows good aromatics with toasty floral stone fruits plus full complex flavours on the finish
2. Attack $115 – Barn Vineyard Black Sage Bench with vibrant balanced acidity for the creamy textures
3. Little Pawn $110 – Barn Vineyard here shows rich powerful more spicy notes
4. Capture $90 – Border Vista Vineyard Osoyoos has citrus notes but peachy soft showing lots of oak
5. Fool’s Mate $80 – Blend of the 3 vineyards easy drinking with yeasty nutty oaky styling

The first buzz resulted from their initial successful release now over a year ago in New York showing the wine trade there that world climate change was raising the pH of the grapes and lowering natural acidity presenting a new opportunity for other wine regions to make top class chardonnays.

Your scribe had a chance on February 2, 2017 to visit the winery (no tasting room) with the winemaker Phil and was very impressed with the careful attention to detail of separate lots in the cellar and the potential shown of the many barrel samples tasted including the amazing texture of Capture 2015 and open aromatics of Queen Taken 2015 both from early harvests of the warmest year ever. Watch for these 2014, 2015, and 2016 in the pipeline!

The just concluded 39th Vancouver International Wine Festival presented the Queen Taken Chardonnay 2013 at 2 seminars where it showed very well:

February 15: BC: Diversity & Purity

February 17: Okanagan Estate Collection –  Excellent trade seminar featured 2 outstanding wines from each of 4 of their wineries: Mission Hill (winemaker Darryl Brooker, Cedar Creek (winemaker Taylor Whelan), CheckMate (Phil Mcgahan), and about to open this April Martin’s Lane (winemaker Shane Munn) – watch for sensational 2014 pinot noir Naramata Bench! Queen Taken showed even better here with better glasses and perfect service temperature. Phil advised of their double curtain procedure in the vineyard so the top of the canopy gets sun and more golden colour while underneath provides clean fresher grapes. Looks for more malic acids to change later into tartaric. 2013 used 50% wild yeast & 50% inoculated for a cold ferment at 8-9 C. 17 months in cask on the lees with careful stirring and bottled unfined & unfiltered. 14.3 alcohol with 6.37 g/l total acidity.

March 1: An opportunity arose for me while in Paris this month to show off this 5 bottle Grand Master Set of 2013 to several top restaurant sommeliers. The main event took place at the exciting newish 2 star Michelin restaurant Le Gabriel @ La Reserve (www.lareserve-paris.com). This is a leading hotel in the 8th and part of Michel Reybier Hospitality (connection with Domaine Prats) and accordingly a wide choice of 18 vintages back to 1967 of Chateau Cos d’Estournel St Estephe and other treasures. Sommelier Jaimee Anderson is so enthusiastic about fine wine and she has done a remarkable job in a short period of time in assembling an ever improving great wine list. I liked her openness to these New World wines and a true appreciation of their quality. The packaging including the bottle shape and unique labels was admired. Most everyone seemed to prefer the single vineyard concept rather than the blend and they generally felt the wines presently showed a little bit too much oak for the impressive balanced fruit. We all know that less can be more! Sommelier Baptiste at the 3 star Michelin Epicure at Le Bristol (arguably currently the best restaurant in Paris) is interested in the elegance of Queen Taken. All in all a very good export exposure for BC wines. Some may say this is like bringing “coals to Newcastle” but these wines certainly do have merit and expect even more complexity from the subsequent vintages. Hopefully in the near future we will see a CheckMate Chardonnay or some other rapidly improving quality Canadian wine on one of these prestigious restaurant wine lists in Paris.

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By Joseph Temple

When a colossal steel-wire suspension bridge connecting the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn (described as the “Eighth Wonder of the World”) debuted in the spring of 1883, the future of New York changed forever. Known today as the Brooklyn Bridge, its two massive towers dominated the city skyline, and for years remained the tallest structure in the Western hemisphere. However, the real value lay in its practicality as originally envisioned by its designers, John and Washington Roebling. Historian David McCullough, in explaining the massive benefits of the bridge, writes, “Manufacturers would have closer ties to the markets … The mail would move faster … Most appealing of all for the Brooklyn people who went to New York to earn a living every day was the prospect of a safe, reliable alternative to the East River ferries.”

But beyond the obvious advantages of a structure that is crossed by 120,000 vehicles and 4,000 pedestrians nearly every single day is another benefit unknown to many: the Brooklyn Bridge also served as a massive wine cellar.

Reported earlier this year by National Public Radio, wine storage became an offshoot for the bridge’s designers due to several reasons. The first was economical; with a massive price tag of $15 million dollars (more than $300 million today) to build the bridge, the Roeblings needed to find other sources of revenue to allay the growing costs. Secondly, when construction began, two merchants on opposite sides of the East River, Rackey’s Wine Company and Luyties & Co. were suddenly uprooted. Therefore, what better way to bring them—as well as other businesses—back into the fold by carving out vaults underneath the ramps leading up to the giant anchorages? Most importantly, because the vault’s temperature barely changed throughout the course of the year, it became the perfect spot for storing wine.

Open for business seven years before the Brooklyn Bridge debuted on May 24, 1883, the cellars today are no longer used to house the finest Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne. Sadly inaccessible to the general public for security reasons, what we know about them is sure to impress. On the Manhattan side, a statue of the Virgin Mary stands at the entrance way along with Old World frescoes and the phrase, “Who Loveth Not Wine, Women, and Song, He Remaineth a Fool His Whole Long Life.”

According to Nicole Jankowski of NPR, over time the walls were painted with designs of provincial Europe along with street names such as Avenue Les Deux Oefs and Avenue Des Chateaux Haut Brion. One author in a book published in 1894 writes, “Years of time and a small fortune in money have been spent in fitting up these vaults for their purpose, and they now constitute a magnificent wine-cellar, perhaps equal to the finest to be found in Europe.”

With the start of the Second World War, the cellars were closed down permanently, with only a few select government employees having access to a site rich in historical artifacts. But as more people become aware of this hidden history, perhaps New York can initiate a new form of wine tourism? After all, the suspension is killing us!

Sources:

Greenberg, Stanley. Invisible New York: The Hidden Infrastructure of the City. Baltimore: JHU Press, 1998.
Hymowitz, Kay S. The New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.
McCullough, David. The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007.
Morris, Charles. Makers of New York: An Historical Work, Giving Portraits and Sketches of the Most Eminent Citizens of New York. New York: L.R. Hamersly & Company, 1894.

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By CocktailSteward (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Question: Thanks Sid for your knowledgeable wine and food blog as well as your most helpful Chablis tips you have given us in the past. I am going to be buying some bottles of best Chablis for cellaring and am hoping for your wise updated thoughts to help me in my purchases.

Answer: Appreciate your kind words. Yes I continue to be a really big Chablis fan and frequent consumer. Petit Chablis & Chablis AC are OK for fresh current use as their delightful simple balanced acidity works well with food (especially seafood). I really enjoy most of all the more expensive mineral complexity of the 7 Grand Crus with some bottle age (especially Les Clos but also Valmur). My favourite producers include Vincent Dauvissat, William Fevre, Christian Moreau and Francois Raveneau. Best value are usually the Premier Crus (like best the vineyards of Montee de Tonnerre & Vaulorent) but others can also excel including for example very old vines (planted in 1933) Vaillons in Cuvee Guy Moreau. During a visit this month to Paris I fortunately tried 6 vintages (2009-2014) of La Forest from Dauvissat that were all truly outstanding and all so age worthy. Still favour collecting the even years of 2010 (so fantastic because of their lower yields), 2012, and 2014. Prices will continue to rise for the easier riper styled 2015 vintage when released and mainly because of the decimated small crop resulting in 2016 plus increasing demand. Recommend you buy now 2014 Dauvissat La Forest – or other top 2014 Premier or Grand Cru Chablis you can find to put away!

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