Fee Bros. Gin Barrel-Aged Orange Bitters

Not that long ago, I knew nothing about bitters aside from having seen yellow-capped bottles of Angostura from time to time and hearing something about it on Lynn Rossetto Kasper's The Splendid Table in the late 90s. Now I get obscure bitters delivered right to my front door.

Ellen Fee and the other folks at Fee Brothers have been good to me over the years, allowing me to try some special bitters after I fell in love with their collection. The grapefruit bitters are getting low, while the rhubarb bottle is still pretty full. But I love breaking them out for friends and family to sniff or sample in a cocktail.

You probably won't get to try this latest concoction, as only four barrels were made. Why such a small batch? Well, it's a test idea that Ellen had, and the recipe requires aging in barrels that previously held Old Tom Gin. Gin is not typically aged in wood but in skilled hands it can produce a fascinating liquor. Old Tom Gin is a lightly sweetened style that was popular in England in the 1700s and is mostly a curiosity these days.

Fee Bros. Gin Barrel-Aged Orange Bitters
Rochester, New York
5 oz.

It includes gentian and "oil of bitter orange terpeneless", which means that a certain class of organic compounds produced by certain plants (it's where we get the word turpentine) have been removed. but let's get away from chemistry (which plays a very important role in bitters production) and move on to aroma. Most orange bitters have a pretty bright and citric character, along with whatever herbs and spices were included to enhance the flavor. This is different, and the best way I could describe it is by eating orange-scented cookies around Christmas. It's a mellower, cooked orange aroma, with dark spices and juniper and all of the interesting elements leached from whatever gin was used to produce this. Slight caramelized aroma, and you'll be reminded of herbal tea.

I tried it with the pretty basic New Amsterdam gin, which is the house gin of Casa de Benito and one that is smooth but not heavily flavored in any particular direction. When combined with the Old Tom bitters, it was suddenly a much better gin. I will experiment with cocktails further, but the idea of a "gin booster" is a fascinating one and I'd like to surprise a few friends with a blind tasting.


Note: This bottle was received as a sample.

Emerald Riesling - Shomron, Israel

There's a tension in wine, as there is in many fields, between science and art.  There are those who believe that science and technology are the way forward and that the best thing we can do to make better wine is to do more research and build more machines.  On the other end of the spectrum, you have the minimalists and the artisans who believe that the best wine is made with little intervention and in the most natural way possible.  Science is an interesting tool that is best used sparingly, if at all, and technological advances in viticulture and oenology are best avoided as they interfere with the natural process that makes wine more than just an alcoholic beverage.  Opinions on the role of research and technology in the field of wine is more contentious than for any other agricultural product on earth.  While the organic and natural food movements are definitely gaining steam these days, most of us still don't really care whether our corn is genetically engineered or whether our wheat was picked by hand or by machine.  When it comes to grapes, though, it's a whole different ballgame.

As with most issues, I find myself somewhere in the middle of this argument.  I am fascinated by the body of scientific research done on grapes, as many of my recent posts will indicate.  I also can't help but feel that modern technology has a deserved place in most wineries and has served to elevate the average quality of wine on a worldwide scale to an extent that is difficult to measure.  On the other hand, I am wary of things like reverse osmosis machines and Mega Purple.  I have a soft spot for the backwards, ultra-naturalist wines of producers like Frank Cornelissan and Vinos Ambiz, but I wouldn't want to drink them all the time.  I believe in terroir, but am not a fanatic or a mysterian about it and am skeptical about the kinds of things that a place can actually contribute to the overall flavor of a wine.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have faith that science and technology can deepen our understanding of wine and even improve the overall quality of it, but only if applied in a careful, judicious kind of way that is respectful of the unique qualities of wine that make it different from any other agricultural or consumer product.

All of which brings us to Dr. Harold Olmo and today's grape, Emerald Riesling.  We've briefly dealt with Dr. Olmo in the past when we took at look at one of his creations, the Symphony grape.  Dr. Olmo was a scientist at the University of California, Davis, which is the institution in the US most synonymous with grape and wine research.  As a result, UC Davis is something of a polarizing force in the world of wine and has been at the forefront of the struggle between the idea of wine as an agricultural consumer product and the idea of wine as an artisanal creation that is crafted, not manufactured.  UC Davis was somewhat notorious at one time for churning out winemakers whose wineries resembled laboratories more than farm buildings and who were more concerned with making a technically pristine wine than an interesting, characterful one.

Dr. Olmo worked at UC Davis for many decades.  In the 1950's, his creation of a quarantine facility for foreign vines on the UC Davis campus allowed California wineries to import vines safely and legally into the state and resulted in an expansion of the number of varieties available for use within the state.  What he is best known for, though, are the so-called Olmo grapes.  He is credited with creating over 30 new grape varieties in his time at UC Davis, which have had a huge impact on the wine industry in the state of California, though most consumers aren't aware that the grapes exist.  Since UC Davis is a state agricultural school, the focus of the grape breeding program there (as it is in similar institutions in Germany or at Cornell in New York) was to create new grapes that could be profitably grown (meaning the vines should yield prolifically) in some of the harsher climactic regions of California.  In particular, Olmo was interested in grapes that could withstand the intense heat of the Central Valley, which is much too hot for most European grape varieties.  His aim was mostly to create high yielding vines that could tolerate these conditions and would make "good" wine, and it is this focus on production over superior quality that causes many wine lovers to look on Olmo's work with suspicion (or outright disdain).  While his work wasn't revolutionary in terms of quality wine production, it was profoundly important economically and there's something to be said for that.  The two most successful grapes he created to this end were Ruby Cabernet and Rubired, which are widely grown in some of the hotter valley regions of California, but which are mostly used in bulk wine production.

The most successful white grape that Olmo bred was Emerald Riesling, which was created by crossing Riesling and Muscadelle (maybe...see note at the bottom).  Emerald Riesling and Ruby Cabernet were Olmo's first wine grapes (he had released a few table grapes prior to this) and they were released together in 1948 after nearly a decade of testing and experimentation.  Like the grapes mentioned above, Emerald Riesling was bred specifically to yield profusely and to endure the intense heat of some of California's hot, fertile valley floors.  Unlike Rubired and Ruby Cabernet, Emerald Riesling has enjoyed some success as a varietal wine.  In the 1960's and 70's, Paul Masson marketed a wine called "Emerald Dry" which was made from Emerald Riesling grapes, which was quite successful for awhile.  The wine is apparently still made (with a retail price around $5 a bottle), though it is nowhere near as popular these days.  It is estimated that fewer than 250 acres (100 hectares) of Emerald Riesling are left in the United States.

Though the grape is declining in popularity in its native home, it is has found new life in an unlikely place: Israel. Israel is interesting because it lacks any native wine grape varieties, so all grapes grown for wine production in Israel have been imported into the country at some point.  In the 1880's, Baron Edmond de Rothschild decided that Israel would be a good place to grow grapes for wine.  In 1887, Rothschild began to bring in the major red Bordeaux varieties and began to focus seriously on producing fine wine in Israel.  Phylloxera put an early stop to Rothschild's dreams, though, and in its aftermath, the locals planted the high yielding, low quality grapes of southern France like Carignan and Alicante Bouschet.  The wine industry began to turn to the "international grape" varieties in the 1970's and quality wine production really began in earnest in the 1980's.

Emerald Riesling was brought over at some point in the 1970's and by the mid 80's, it was the best selling white wine in Israel.  Like Lancers or Mateus from Portugal or Liebfraumilch from Germany, these wines were made in a semi-sweet style and were not all that expensive.  The wines are still fairly popular, but they don't seem to be the face of the Israeli wine industry any longer.  I'm finding more and more Israeli wines made from the international varieties on my local shelves these days, but have only ever found a single bottle of Emerald Riesling.

The wine that I was able to find was the 2010 Tishbi Emerald Riesling from Shomron, Israel, which I bought for the whopping price of $18 at a convenience store in Harvard Square.  In the glass, the wine was a pale lemon color with a lot of green in it.  The nose was nicely aromatic with juicy, exuberant pineapple, green apple and lime fruits.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with medium acidity.  It was off-dry to medium sweet with flavors of sweet pineapple, honeyed apple and lemon curd with a touch of honeysuckle flower.  The finish on the wine was jarringly short and ended on an abrupt, bitter note.  One of the hallmarks of Emerald Riesling is its ability to maintain its high acid level in very hot growing areas, but I found this example kind of flabby.  It does really need some acid to prop up the sugar in the wine, but it ultimately falls flat and just isn't that interesting to drink.  Fans of Liebfraumilch will find a lot to like here, but $18 a bottle is too much to ask for wine at that kind of quality level.  I'd avoid this unless you're interested in it for novelty's sake or are a big fan of alcoholic Kool-Aid.

**Every source online says that Emerald Riesling is a cross between Riesling and Muscadelle, but the Oxford Companion to Wine has it listed as a cross between Muscadelle and Grenache.  When I emailed them to inquire about the discrepancy, Julia Harding would only respond that the Riesling x Muscadelle info was incorrect, but that I'd have to wait for the publication of their new book on grapes for the full story.  I was able to track down Dr. Olmo's paper written in 1948 when he released the grapes where he says the grape is a hybrid between White Riesling and Muscadelle of California.  The VIVC has the parentage listed as Riesling x Muscadelle of California, and Muscadelle of California is listed separately from Muscadelle.  My guess is that Muscadelle of California is a different grape than the Muscadelle propagated in France and Australia, but since the OCW is being coy about it, I suppose we'll have to wait until October to know for sure.

**UPDATE**

Reader George sent me a link to a UC Davis newsletter published in 2006 that clarifies this issue (here).  The correct parentage for Emerald Riesling does appear to be Muscadelle x Grenache.  I've written a longer piece here detailing this information and also detailing many of the problems that I have with the way that the OCW has handled this issue.

The Beauty Shop Lunch

A few weeks ago I took Julia to The Beauty Shop, an interesting little restaurant in the Cooper-Young district of Memphis. It's a converted hair salon that still has the hairwashing sinks behind the bar and you can sit under the old hairdryers in the back. I like it because of the great cocktails and eclectic, constantly changing menu. Plus, it's really fun to take someone there for the first time, and we had a great little lunch. The following weekend I decided to recreate it at home. Anything you see here is the creativity of the Beauty Shop staff, and any flaws in the execution are my own fault. I take no credit here beyond the fact that a particular joy of cooking is the ability to have a great meal and then pull it off with your own kitchen.

First up: the appetizers with assorted cheeses, olives, marinated mushrooms, and some other neat things. They had a nut-brown sugar-butter spread that was delicious, and a dish of canned cherries that had been reduced down with balsamic vinegar. I did a decent job with the spread using walnuts, and found that sea salt was crucial to bringing out the flavor. My cherries were not pretty to begin with, but flavorwise I got pretty close with a slow reduction using both balsamic and red wine vinegar. The cheeses here are Manchego, Gouda, something Basque, and something else from the Netherlands.

I had a roast beef sandwich of some sort at the restaurant, but Julia picked their ham and cheese which included thin slices of apple and spicy brown mustard. When I made it, I used mandoline slices of Asian pear, Black Forest ham, smoked cheddar, and a combination of oak leaf lettuce and frisée. Like the restaurant, I did not grill the whole sandwich but merely used lightly toasted bread to make the sandwich. Minus the lettuce, I've made similar sandwiches in a skillet.

It's a great flavor combination and I had a few more of these over the next few days with the ample spare ingredients. Wrapped tightly they also last long enough to make in the evening and enjoy at lunch the next day.

The Beauty Shop serves sandwiches and other lunch items with freshly fried potato chips and a garlic-chili aïoli. For my aïoli, I used Sriracha sauce to spice it up with excellent results. Aïoli is not the kind of thing you want to eat every day, but man, it's delicious. I left half of the batch plain and found it tasty, but so much better with that squirt of Sriracha. Here's the recipe I used, not really taken from anywhere but just a result of trial and error.

Benito's Aïoli
5 Cloves of Garlic
Dash of Dijon Mustard
1 Egg Yolk
½ Lemon, Juiced
Dash of Sea Salt
A few turns of freshly ground Black/White Pepper
1 Cup of Pure Olive Oil (no extra virgin necessary)

Combine everything except the oil in a blender or in a cup with a stick blender. Then slowly drizzle in the cup of olive oil while blending. That's it. You can modify this in hundreds of different ways, either by adding chopped herbs or by using different vinegars instead of lemon juice. Throw in some hot sauce like Sriracha or toss in diced cornichons, go crazy.

Touriga Nacional - Landenberg, PA, USA

If the category "Portuguese wine grapes" ever came up on the Family Feud, I'd be willing to bet almost anything that Touriga Nacional would be the number one answer by a fairly substantial margin.  Touriga Nacional is known as the Queen of Grapes within Portugal and is that country's answer to Tempranillo or Sangiovese.  It is THE main quality grape used in the production of Port and, in more recent years, has taken on a larger role in the production of dry table wines in the Douro and Dão regions of Portugal.  While it may not be a household name right now, it is a grape that is fairly well known to experienced wine drinkers and which can be had quite easily from virtually any shop.  So why write about it here?  Because this particular bottle came from grapes grown in Pennsylvania.

Before we get to that, let's talk a little about the grape itself.  Despite Touriga's reputation as the highest quality wine grape in Portugal and despite the fact that Touriga Nacional and Portuguese wines are practically synonymous at this point, it wasn't that long ago that the grape was on the brink of extinction.  The vine is prone to poor fruit set and, when the fruit actually does set, it sets into a small number of small clusters with small berries.  This means that the wines made from these grapes are uniquely deep in color and intensely flavorful and aromatic, but it also means that the vines produce pitifully small yields, which is not a quality that growers are enamored of in the vines that they cultivate.  Despite that, by around 1900, Touriga Nacional was thought to cover over 90% of the vineyard land in the Dão.  As we've seen so many times, though, once Phylloxera came to town, everything changed.  After the scourge had decimated their vineyards, many growers decided to plant higher yielding vines that they could get more juice (and therefore more wine) from.  The vine was perilously close to disappearing in the mid 20th Century but it hung on.  Today it only accounts for about 2% of the vines of the Douro Valley and possibly up to 20% of the vines of the Dão.  Given its rising popularity on the international scene, its plantings are increasing and the vine is finding its way south through Portugal, but not all that quickly.  It is currently planted on about 3500 hectares (about 9000 acres) throughout Portugal.

The name Touriga may come from a village in the Dão called Tourigo, where the grape is thought to have originated.  The Nacional part means exactly what you'd think, and I'd be interested to find out how it got tacked on at the end.  There are a host of other Touriga grapes such as Touriga Franca, Touriga Branca and Touriga Fêmea which, as far as I can tell, aren't related to one another, but the two most widely planted are Nacional and Franca.  Touriga Franca used to be known as Touriga Francesa, which means French Touriga basically, though the grape doesn't appear to be from France.  My guess is that both grapes were thought to be from around Tourigo, but, for some reason, Touriga Franca was thought to have come from France before then, while Touriga Nacional was thought to be indigenous to the area.  The Nacional was tacked on to indicate that it was a native Portuguese grape as opposed to a grape imported from another country that happened to land near Tourigo.  As for the other two Tourigas, Branco means white, so you can guess how that it got its name, while a synonym for Touriga Fêmea (while means "female Touriga") is Touriga Brasileira, which may indicate that the locals thought there may be some kind of connection with Brazil (which was a Portuguese colony for many years).  All of that is conjecture, though, and I'd be interested to hear from anyone who may know more.

Touriga Nacional is grown outside of Portugal, but like most Portuguese wine grapes, it hasn't made a big splash anywhere outside of its home country.  There is some grown in Spain, Australia and a very little bit is grown in the United States.  The grape really seems to thrive in the intense heat and poor, rocky soils of the Douro valley, so when my sister gave me a bottle of Touriga Nacional from a winery in Pennsylvania for Christmas, I was pretty surprised.  The winery is Paradocx Vineyards and they're located in Landenberg, PA, which is in the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania, very near Wilmington, Delaware.  My only prior exposure to this winery was when my wife went to a wine festival in Pennsylvania with her siblings a few years ago and came home with a paint can full of 3.5 liters of wine.  I've written on other sites about my frustration with wineries trying to grow grapes that are climactically poorly suited to their region, and while I don't necessarily want to run through that argument again, it certainly looked like this might be a prime example of that phenomenon.  It turns out that Landenberg isn't that much different from the Douro Valley in terms of latitude, but I don't know enough about the climates of the two regions to be able to say how similar or dissimilar they are (my gut tells me Portugal is hotter and drier, but I wouldn't swear to it).  I'm certain that the hills of Southern Chester County Pennsylvania aren't as steep and rocky as the vineyards of the Douro, though, so I was curious to see what the wine would be like.

As I mentioned, my sister in law gave me a bottle of the 2010 Paradocx Vineyards Touriga Nacional, which it looks like retails for about $29 on the winery's website.  In the glass the wine was a pale ruby color that looked more like Pinot Noir than Touriga Nacional.  As mentioned above, the berries of Touriga Nacional are very small which usually produces a very deeply colored wine, but I could easily see through this wine, which wasn't necessarily a promising start.  The nose was nicely aromatic with spicy, dusky red cherry and raspberry fruit with a bit of wild strawberry, tea leaves and damp earth.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with medium acidity and low tannins.  There were flavors of spicy cherry and raspberry fruit with strong black tea and damp earth notes.  The more I smelled and drank this, the more concerned I was that maybe I just had Pinot Noir on the brain, but my wife confirmed most of my taste sensations.

This is kind of a hard wine to talk about.  It wasn't a bad wine as far as wines go.  If I had been served this without any idea of what it was, I would have found it quite enjoyable and probably would have guessed that it was a cool climate Pinot Noir based wine.  With no information other than the juice in the glass, I would say it was a decent wine but not necessarily something I'd rush out to buy again.  But if you consider it as an example of a wine made from Touriga Nacional grapes, it feels like the conclusion that you come to about its quality has to be radically different.  As an example of a Touriga Nacional wine, it's a very bad wine as it lacks virtually all of the characteristics that you would expect to see in a wine made from that grape.  It is light and delicate where Touriga is brawny and intense.  It is marked by low color, low tannins and red berryish fruit where Touriga is deeply colored, fiercely tannic and loaded with black fruits.

So is the wine good or bad?  What can we really say about this wine?  When we had no information, we found it enjoyable, but learning additional information about the wine has prejudiced us and caused us to think about it in a different, more negative light.  Is our first sensation of enjoyment the most important one or should our critical estimation arrived at after considering all of the important facts of the matter be privileged?  Has the additional knowledge poisoned the well, so to speak, or has it given us a deeper perspective and allowed us to see something closer to the truth?

2010 Domaine de la Tourmaline Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur lie

Muscadet is a light white wine from France traditionally paired with oysters. And I love oysters, but I really don't like shucking them myself. I know a few places around town where I can have dozens of Ameripure oysters for next to nothing, and while I like the restaurant standard oyster, I really miss traveling to other cities where I could try a dozen different east coast or west coast bivalves depending on what was in season. Tiny salty ones paired with a grapefruit granita or big buttery ones served with mignonette sauce... Anyway, I chose to buck tradition and regions and serve the wine with pasta and rapini.

2010 Domaine de la Tourmaline Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur lie
Made by Gadais Père & Fils
Melon de Bourgogne
$14, 12% abv.

This is distributed in the US by Cognac One, known to me as the provider of the various interesting wines of Xavier Flouret that I've reviewed over the years. Light floral nose with a touch of lemony acidity and a great mineral tone. Overall mild body and a slight finish. I haven't had many restrained French whites recently and this was a pure delight to try. While it would work great with oysters or other fresh shellfish, I defend my choice to pair it with the following dish.

Speaking of minerals, geology fans will enjoy the fact that the name includes the semi-precious stone tourmaline and that the grapes grew in soil full of mica gneiss, a type of metamorphic rock.

Yes, when taking a walk, I pick up odd rocks and have a bit of training in the subject.

For the pasta dish, I started with olive oil and diced shallots and garlic, followed by red bell pepper and a big dollop of tomato paste. I added chicken stock and white wine, and after reduction, I introduced chopped rapini to let the leaves wilt and the stalks and blossoms to soften. At the last minute I introduced sliced salsiccia, sweet Italian sausage that I'd previously simmered then browned. A dash of dried pepper flakes, a little red wine vinegar, a few other touches of magic and a final toss of shredded Asiago cheese with the tongs, and we've got a good meal.

This was a very fun wine pairing, and although the Loire is not near the Mediterranean, I like mixing French/Italian/Spanish foods with French/Italian/Spanish wines. I do so in the tradition of Phoenician traders 3000 years ago. I'm guessing they didn't get too picky about matching the right grape to the right culinary tradition, and their Egyptian customers were probably even less discerning.

Folks, as you pop a cork and let fermented grape juice fall out of a bottle, never forget that you're experiencing history in a glass.


Note: This wine was received as a sample.

Arinto - Bucelas, Portugal

Sorting out the different grapes of Portugal is something of a nightmare.  To be as small as it is, Portugal probably causes me more headaches and more confusion than any other wine region.  For some reason, nearly every grape grown in Portugal has a ton of synonyms and the primary name for the grape changes from region to region within the country.  Further, as you might expect given their geographical proximity, there are a lot of grapes that are common to both Spain and Portugal, but pretty much none of them go by the same name in each country.  Some of them are pretty easy to spot and sort out (like Albariño and Alvarinho), but for others, there's no way you could guess that the grapes were identical.  Take the case of Tempranillo.  In Portugal, Tempranillo is typically called Aragonez or Tinta Roriz, while in Spain, it is mostly called Tempranillo but is also known variously as Cencibel, Tinta de Toro, and Tinto Fino.   All you can really do is try to memorize the synonyms yourself because, as you can see, there really isn't any kind of clue in the various names themselves that would let you know that you are dealing with a single grape.

That's a problem, but it's a problem that is much easier to sort out than the use of a single grape name as a synonym for a variety of different, unrelated grapes.  This is something like the Trebbiano problem in Italy where there are a handful of different grapes with the word Trebbiano in their name which, it turns out, aren't related to one another at all.  This is the kind of problem Arinto has in Portugal, and it caused me quite a bit of confusion before I was able to finally sort it all out.  When I bought the wine that I'll be writing about below, I looked it up in Wikipedia when I was in the store and read this sentence: "Arinto is a synonym of Malvasia Fina and Loureiro Blanco," which I interpreted to mean Arinto = Malvasia Fina = Loureiro Blanco.  Which, it turns out, isn't true at all.  What it means is that Malvasia Fina is known as Arinto in some places and Loureiro Blanco is known as Arinto in some places as well, but the names Malvasia Fina, Loureiro Blanco and Arinto refer to three distinct grape varieties which aren't related to one another (the Madeira grape Sercial is also sometimes called Arinto but isn't related to the other three grapes either).  Just to add a bit to the confusion, Tempranillo is also known in some parts of Portugal as Arinto Tinto, though, you guessed it, it isn't related to Arinto in any way.

Thinking I finally had it all straight, I went to the VIVC database today to see what information was in there about Arinto.  A search for "Arinto" brings up this page.  The "Prime Name" field is where you're supposed to look to find the grape you're looking for, as the "Cultivar name" field pulls up every occurrence of the search term as a synonym of other grapes.  As you can see from the list, there is no "Prime name" entry for Arinto though there are 29 entries in the "Cultivar name" column that have Arinto somewhere in them.  It turns out that Arinto is officially known as Arinto de Bucelas which, I'm guessing, is an effort to lessen confusion given the proliferation of the Arinto name and possibly to differentiate it from another grape called Arinto the Douro Valley which is now officially known as Arinto do Douro.  These two Arintos are not related but, and here's the really crazy thing, Arinto do Douro is an accepted synonym for Arinto de Bucelas.

Wasn't that fun?

Anyway, the grape we're here to talk about is Arinto de Bucelas which, as you might expect, is most commonly grown in the Bucelas region of Portugal.  Bucelas is located just north of the city of Lisbon which is within the Lisboa region (which was called Estremadura until 2009 when it was changed to avoid confusion with the Spanish region Extramadura) which is a thin strip of land on the western Coast of Portugal, almost right in the middle from north to south.  Grapes have likely been grown in this region since Roman times, though the style has changed throughout the years.  In the Elizabethan age, the wine was fortified and it is thought that a reference to a wine called Charneco in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2 is a reference to Bucelas wine.  Thomas Jefferson was a fan of the lighter, unfortified wines from this region in the late 18th - early 19th centuries, as was Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington, who made the wine fashionable in London where it was known as "Portuguese Hock" (Hock being an old British term for wines from Germany).  Because of this name it was suspected for many years that Arinto may be related to Riesling, but it turns out that it isn't.  In the studies that I've read, Arinto's closest relative is probably the Gouveio grape, which is called Godello in Spain (and is not to be confused with Verdelho, despite Wikipedia's efforts to lead you to believe otherwise).

Wines from Bucelas fell on hard times, though.  As the city of Lisbon and its surrounding areas grew, they overtook some of the vineyards from the region.  By the 1980's, Bucelas was a monopoly as all of the remaining vineyard land was owned by a single company who was making bad wine.  Things have changed for the better over the past decade or so as more quality-conscious producers have set about trying to revive the past glories of Bucelas wine.

I was able to find a bottle of the 2009 Quinta da Murta Bucelas for about $9.  Wines from Bucelas must contain a minimum of 75% Arinto, but this wine is 100% (you can read the technical specs here).  In the glass the wine was a pale silvery lemon color with a greenish tint.  The nose was moderately aromatic with ripe pears, green melon, lemon peel and something faintly tropical that I wasn't able to put my finger on (banana was as close as I got).  On the palate the wine was on the lighter side of medium with fairly high, zippy kind of acidity, a hallmark of the grape.  There were flavors of lemony citrus and green apple with pineapple, lemon peel and something slightly herbal.  The wine was quite tart and was just screaming for some kind of food.  This would be great with raw oysters, grilled scallops or even chicken served in a creamy lemon sauce.  It's not a profound wine, but given the under $10 price tag, it's a pretty good deal.  I have a hard time finding wines I like to drink for under $10, but this one was satisfying and tasty.  They apparently make about 80,000 bottles of this stuff so if you run across it, give it a shot.

Pinot Noir and Chardonnay

Here are a few wine notes from a month ago that I'd neglected to turn into posts. Nothing wrong with the wines--in fact, I really enjoyed these. But sometimes you get caught up with other things, and sometimes you want to wax nostalgic about your Scouting days, and sometimes you're more in the mood to write about cooking.

I don't review every wine that I taste, though that was the goal of the blog in the first two years. And I slogged through it with notes and links and prices on everything I tasted, which was kind of crazy since I was mainly going to free tastings on weekends and reviewing 10-20 wines per post. Now I write about far fewer wines but spend more time with them. Perhaps during my 10th anniversary year I'll just write about one wine a month, but it will be some legendary, rare vintage plucked out of a cellar in Bordeaux. A fella can dream, can't he?

2008 Foley Chardonnay Rancho Santa Rosa
Sta. Rita Hills, California
$30, 14.4% abv.
Honey and vanilla with a touch of coconut. Firm acidity, long finish. A surprisingly tropical Chardonnay with an excellent use of oak. While tasting it I found myself wishing that it was summer and that I had some Thai food in front of me. The aromas on this wine are not too strong, but it is a very fun wine to let novices sniff while they try to figure out what those elements are in their glass of white wine.

2009 Parducci Small Lot Blend Pinot Noir
California
$12, 13.5% abv.
Firm tannins but still smooth and creamy. Strawberry with slight leather and smoke. This is a bargain Pinot Noir without a lot of complexity, but it works well. I enjoyed it with leftover turkey sandwiches during the holidays, and the combination made for a pair of delightful weekend lunches.

2009 Craggy Range Te Muna Road Vineyard Pinot Noir
Martinborough, New Zealand
$40, 14.4% abv.
This one probably deserved its own post, but I did recently get the opportunity to try two other wines from Craggy Range. This dignified Pinot Noir was fascinating with a solid body and great red berry flavors. Elements of spice and a hint of raspberry seed, medium tannins, and firm acidity. As it opened up, floral and additional spice aromas were present. Even though it was two years old at the time, I still felt that it was not quite ready. In a few years this should be spectacular. I'm not an expert on aging and cellaring, but if you do enough verticals and early release samples from established winemakers, you start to figure out the differences between a "drink now" wine and a "arrggh... why didn't I hold onto this for half a decade?" wine. Which means that if you're thirsty now, you might want to be on the lookout for any surviving bottles from 2004, and set this vintage aside for enjoying during the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.


Note: These wines were received as samples.