This bud break's for you and tasting at Curtis

Bud break is upon us in Santa Barbara County, most notably to the north in Santa Maria Valley, where early-budding Chardonnay is already greening up the vineyards. The Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay vineyards along 101 just north of Los Alamos are almost fully green.

Bud break at Bien Nacido, late-March 2013 

Further down Foxen Canyon Road in the Santa Ynez Valley, Rhône varietals at Curtis Winery are just starting to break.

Bud break at Curtis, late-March 2013

While at Curtis I tasted through a nice lineup of balanced and bright Rhône varietal wines. Most impressive to me were the 2011 Curtis Heritage Blanc, Santa Barbara County, with richly layered tropical and citrus notes along with honey and spice nuances. Among the reds the 2009 Curtis Rock Hollow Vineyard Syrah, Santa Ynez Valley is aged for 18 months in 40% new French oak and comes from their estate vineyard in Ballard Canyon. It shows an alluring complexity of spice, tea, earth, cracked pepper and brambly fruit that streamlines into blueberry and violet with subtle depth on the palate, finishing with firm polished structure and good length. Really a beautiful wine. Also the 2010 Curtis Reserve "GSM", Santa Ynez Valley (50% Grenache, 25% Syrah, 25% Mourvedre) showed an epic blend of meaty cassis, spice and blood orange fruit - layered, juicy and bright on the palate finishing with hints of clove and vanilla, firm silky tannins and good length - an outstanding wine. Click here for tasting notes on the current lineup at Curtis.

Wine freezing fallout, rosé tasted blind, & a nifty Mersault pairing

It's been a busy week at the world headquarters of Wine I Like! I think I bummed some folks out on Linked In with my wine freezing... My three commenters there seemed genuinely offended, although I'm not sure they actually read the blog post or checked the links. It's funny what gets people riled up.

Elsewhere, I participated in the latest installment of the Central Coast Wine Press Tasting Panel. We enjoyed  a couple of rosé wines tasted blind and paired with cheeses, charcuterie and pulled pork. One was Central Coast and the other Provence. The group opinions were mixed, but I definitely leaned toward the 2012 Domaine de la Fourquette Cotes du Provence Cuvee Rosee d'Aurore over the 2011 Carhartt Grenache Rosé Santa Ynez Valley. It was a contrast in styles - crisp, dry and aromatic newly released Provence vs round, full and luscious Central Coast with a year of bottle age. At any rate it was great fun with good folks. Click here to read Laurie's full notes on the evening.

Finally, I decided it was time to "close the deal" on a purchase I made from Wines 'Till Sold Out two years ago. I wanted to open my second and final bottle of 2007 Louis Latour Mersault-Blagny 1er Cru Château de Blagny ($37 each with free shipping), so I decided to search on Google for good Chardonnay pairings. What I found was a simple recipe of chicken leg quarters roasted in white wine, marjoram, cream & butter that was recommended for "medium oak-influenced Chardonnay" - the rich dark meat of the chicken alights the fruit and richness of the wine. It was a solid pairing and the wine showed well otherwise- Austere and nutty upon opening, it really came alive after an hour or two. Light gold in color with aromas of toasted almond, river rock and lemon zest. Bright citrus and stone fruit flavors framed with dried herb, mineral and nutty notes. Richly layered and brightly polished, with a full 45 second finish of spice, herb and citrus. It continued to improve until the end of the bottle. Very nice. Drink/short term hold. It was so good I didn't even have to freeze it!

Was freezing my open wine a good idea?

I recently ran across a Cellartracker tasting note mentioning freezing opened wine for later consumption. Intrigued, I posted a note on Wineberserkers.com getting several interesting responses and decided to give it a try.

A quick Google search reveals several sources of information regarding the trial and error and the science of freezing wine. Basically, at common household freezer temperatures the water component of the wine will freeze leaving traces of unfrozen liquid with highly concentrated alcohol. In the short-term the wine remains largely uncompromised, although you might see some sediment from tartaric acid falling out of solution.

In unopened bottles the expansion of the freezing liquid and ultra-low humidity can push out or dry out corks or even crack the glass, so there doesn't really seem to be a practical application for freezing wine unopened. As for storing an opened bottle for later consumption, what I read considered this viable although there were varying opinions on the length of time you would want to leave the wine frozen (or how much the structure might be affected).

I opened a bottle of Melville 2008 Pinot Noir Terraces, Sta. Rita Hills. Out of the bottle and over several hours the wine was showing a full bouquet and drinking with ample bold red fruit along with big spice notes, hints of earth, and richly textured integrated structure, along with some heat on the finish.

Straight from the freezer

With just under half a bottle remaining, I decanted the wine into a 375 ml bottle that I use for storage and placed it diagonally in my freezer. Upon removing the bottle the following day, the mostly frozen wine remained diagonally suspended. I left the bottle on my counter until the liquid leveled out, then placed it in lukewarm water in my sink to finish thawing. After about an hour the wine was at a good approximate 60 degree temperature for drinking Pinot Noir.

In drinking the previously frozen Melville Terraces, whatever affects freezing a wine may have over 24 hours may have were imperceptible to me. I might have said that the structure of the wine had softened ever-so-slightly, but I couldn't be certain. The flavor profile was identical to me, and there was no oxidation. Basically as far as I could reasonably tell I was drinking an identical glass of wine to the one I had decanted 24 hours earlier. Next time I'll try the freezing for a longer time frame.

With mixed results I've pumped, gassed, and dropped little plastic disks into my wine bottles. The only question that remains for me is why this isn't the consensus for saving an opened bottle.

Quick highlights- World of Pinot Noir Grand Tasting

The connection to Arcadian Winery served as my ticket to the World of Pinot Noir Grand Tasting. Friend and fellow blogger Liz D. and I were the friendly faces proudly pouring 2007 vintages of Arcadian Pisoni and Arcadian Fiddlestix Pinot Noirs to the masses - great wines to set the bar for my opportunity to get out from behind the table to taste.

Armed with my phone (camera), a pen, scrap pieces of paper and a WOPN pinot glass, I set out to rapidly taste the chosen producers that I could get to. I tend to prefer the balance/lower alcohol/higher acid/stemmy style of Pinot, so many of the favorites reflect these preferences, however I did try to get to a variety of regions and styles.

Starting with Sta. Rita Hills, Raj Parr was offering a preview of Sandhi's 2011 Pinot Noir Wenzlau, Sta. Rita Hills from magnum. The south-facing vineyard is located high in the hills overlooking the Santa Ynez River, between the Sea Smoke and Mt. Carmel vineyards. The wine is completely whole-cluster fermented, aged in mostly neutral barrel, and bottled unfined and unfiltered. The stems were alive with pine-forest and fennel notes along with bright cherry, anise and mineral notes through a long fine structure. As the stems integrate and weave their complexity within the wine this will be one to love.

Paul Lato action shot!

The vaunted Pisoni Vineyard of Santa Lucia Highlands was wonderfully represented by a pair of divergent Pinot Noirs. While his lineup centered around Santa Barbara County, the Paul Lato 2009 Pinot Noir Lancelot Pisoni Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands amazed with its incredible depth and elegance along with seamless layers of earthen spice, florals and bright berry notes throughout. On the other side of the coin the Pisoni Estate 2010 Pinot Noir, Santa Lucia Highlands brought a huge profile with pipe-tobacco, black tea and cherry cola over a deep foundation of earth and spice. The tannins were ripe, the acid was integrated and the finish was huge - an epic wine. 

I was quite smitten with two wines from the new Fort Ross-Seaview AVA in the far Sonoma Coast. Flowers 2010 Pinot Noir Sea View Ridge, Sonoma Coast was seamless in its deep layers of dark earthen spice and dried cherry and fig. The wine comes from soils of schist, sandstone and shale and is grown at elevations upwards of 1875'. Fermentation employs partial whole clusters. Failla's 2011 Pinot Noir Whistler, Sonoma Coast is similar in its deep notes of dark earth and spice and fig with firm acids and fine long tannin.

Copain's 2010 "En Haut" Kiser Pinot Noir, Anderson Valley comes from the cool "deep end" of Anderson Valley. The upper parcel of the Kiser Vineyard is notable for the schist and sandstone soils. This was showing beautiful earthy mineral, floral, savory spice and tea notes throughout, highlighted by sharp red cherry and laid out on a beautifully elegant frame. Awesome stuff.

Oregon was well represented with a couple of standouts from Soter & Bergström. The Soter 2010 Pinot Noir Mineral Springs Ranch, Willamette Valley, Yamhill-Carlton is grown in sloping south-facing siltstone soils and destemmed prior to fermentation, with the resulting wines aged in 30% new French oak barrels. The profile showed a melange of savory spice notes to go along with sous bois and bright fig, stitched with a tightly-wound elegant structure. The 2011 Bergström 2011 Pinot Noir De Lancellotti, Willamette Valley, Chehalem Mountains in contrast highlights a bright minerality of chalk and limestone to go along with rich fig fruit and great depth of violet, mushroom and spice notes wound in a silky rich structure. 

These highlights represent what was on balance a fine grouping of exciting Pinot Noir producers that I tasted through. Click here for notes on all of the wines I tasted.

Brunello and a half

There's always a tinge of guilt when I open a fine wine too young... Like I've interrupted the wine's journey to enlightenment! So despite the temptation I try to be a steward of my wine, fostering its growth and development in a cool and dark environment in order to someday help it see its potential. Being a relatively young in cellaring wine it's a challenge to give the wines I'm most excited about enough time. I suppose there's a future tipping point when someday I'll have more ready-to-drink wine than I know what to do with.

With this in mind the half-bottle (375 ml) is useful for early indulgence. With less wine to fend off the air in the bottle it matures more quickly, so the size is perfect to open and enjoy without feeling the need for extended time in the cellar. The size can also be useful in restaurants. The drawbacks are selection and price - few producers bottle the size and it's never as good a value as the standard (750ml) bottle. However at the right times the small bottles can find good use.

I had such an occasion to make use of a half-bottle of 2007 Ciacci Piccolomini d'Aragona Brunello di Montalcino that I picked up a while back. From the vaunted 2007 Tuscan vintage, this wine received high praise as Wine Spectator's #9 most exciting wine of 2012. With such acclaim for both the wine and the vintage, I was curious to get a glimpse of how this might be showing.

Lying in wait

Tenuta Ciacci Piccolomini d'Aragona is an historic estate dating back to the 17th century and is now owned by the Bianchini family. The vineyards are located in the south-southwest part of Montalcino at altitudes hovering around 1000' on sloping stony soils. The Pianrosso vineyard on the estate represents their finest expression of quality and terroir and is bottled as the estate's top-end single vineyard Brunello and Brunello Riserva. The estate hand-tends the vines throughout the year and farms using organic principles.

The 2007 Ciacci Piccolomini d'Aragona Brunello di Montalcino comes from 100% Sangiovese Grosso grown on the estate. Fermentation takes place in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks and glass/concrete vats. The wine is aged for 24 months in Slavonian oak barrels with an additional 4 months in bottle. In the glass this is a brick-ruby color and medium in body. There's no shortage of mineral and earth notes- most notably crushed rock, along with violet-floral, tangy cherry and orange zest. The palate brings hints of rich cedar and polish along with finely rustic tannins. There's a nice balance between austerity and elegance and richness, culminating with lingering spice and fruit on the finish. This was noted at about an hour after opening, and the profile had mostly shut down by the third hour. This was truly a glimpse, and is definitely something to hold onto before trying a long decant.

There's no shortage of well-received base-level 2007 Brunello on the market hovering around $50 (often less). This will run about $60, but with excellent pedigree and a serious profile mixing both modern and traditional elements, it's a worthy buy-and-hold for fans of the mighty Brunello Di Montalcino. And available in half-bottles!