The New Alsace

Lately, I've excitedly introduced a slew of Alsace wines. At the risk of sounding shrill, please allow me to pontificate more. If you already drink a fair share of Alsace wines, my apologies. But if you haven't had any Alsace wine in recent memory, or none at all (God forbid), then I urge you to wake up and consume some of the most satisfying and affordable wines in the world.

Almost as long as I've been drinking wines, I've been drinking Alsace wines. The bright yellow label on tall green bottles of Hugel and Trimbach first caught my eye. I also fell hard for Leon Beyer, then Marcel Deiss, Zind-Humbrecht and Ostertag.

But more recent discoveries like Marc Tempe, Sylvie Spielmann, and Laurent Bannwarth have made me love and drink Alsace wines even more. These wines are made with little intervention, and their flavors have a depth and purity of expression that I find only in a few wines.

In Alsace they eat everything--pigs and cows nose to tail, vegetables and mushrooms, duck and seafood--which doesn't surprise me because these wines go with everything. They are a source of comfort in winter and a thirst-quenching refreshment in the summer.

Experience the joy in wines even more, drink Alsace wines.


Alsace Riesling Zellenberg, Domaine Marc Tempe 2010 $27.00
Selection from various parcels in the Zellenberg commune where Tempe is based. The vines are biodynamcially farmed and average 50 years-old. The grapes are vinified and aged in foudre with native yeasts, without additives and with just a minimal dose of sulfites. Yields were low in 2010 but quality is superb. If you love dry Riesling, then you will find this structured 2010 Zellenberg brilliant. And like some of Alsace's greatest dry Rieslings like the Frederic Emile and Clos St. Hune, this Zellenberg benefits from aging. A great buy.


Vin d'Alsace White "Envol", Domaine Sylvie Spielmann 2010 $19.00
This unique dry Alsace white shows the greatness of field blends. In 2008 Sylvie Spielmann took over a neighbor's plot situated between her two vineyards that is planted to Sylvaner, Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, and Riesling averaging 30 years-old. She immediately converted it to biodynamic farming to invigorate and awaken the vines, producing a wine with intense flavors that have balance and harmony. All the grapes are vinified together with indigenous yeasts, without additives, and with just a small dose of sulfites. A complex wine that will continue to evolve over the next decade.


Alsace Gewurztraminer "Qvevri", Domaine Laurent Bannwarth 2011 $48.00
100% Gewurztraminer from biodynamically farmed vines. Following the Georgian winemaking approach, the skins were macerated with the juice to extract as much flavor from the skins. It was vinified naturally, using native yeasts and without addition of sulfites or any other additives. Then the wine was aged in terracootta Kvevri for at least a year and bottled unfined and unfiltered. Along with the deeper color, the flavors offer fantastic depth and richness with lovely tannins. This is immediately new and strange and very likable.


Alsatian Riesling "patience...", Domaine Laurent Bannwarth 2009 $35.00
This was vinified for at least 24 months on its lees before completing development and arriving at peak--on its own, using natural yeasts, without temperature control, without additives, and without added sulfites. After vinification the wine was allowed to settle and rest for at least another 12 months before being bottled unfined and unfiltered. I've never had Riesling like this that offers such broadness and depth of flavors. Instead of being laser-focused, it is a full-blown, harmonic ensemble.

Weekend Tasting: 6th and 7th March 2015

A couple of new Gamays just arrived, one from the Loire and the other from Beaujolais. Come and taste these new arrivals this Friday and Saturday, Mar. 6th & 7th 12pm-5pm. Tasting is complimentary.

Simon Tardieux worked with Catherine Roussel and Didier Barrouillet at Clos Roche Blanche in the Touraine region of the Middle Loire. Without any vineyards, he teamed up with Alain Courtault who was just in the process of converting his vines to organic farming. Together these two are crafting delicious, unpretentious thirst wines or vin de soif at very affordable prices. The 2011 Gamay is made naturally, with native yeasts and without additives and just a small dose of sulfites at bottling.

Nicolas Testard trained at Domaine Prieure-Roch and with his close friend, Frederic Cossard, two of the very few natural wine producers in the Cote d'Or. Prieure-Roch is owned by Henri Roch, one of the co-owners of DRC and a nephew of Lalou Bize-Leroy. After his Burgundy stints Testard went back to Beaujolais and started his own domaine making affordable thirst wines or vins de soif with little intervention: no additives and no added sulfites. The 2014 Beaujolais-Villages Primeur is a Nouveau wine released late last year for immediate enjoyment.

TASTING FEATURE:

Beaujolais-Villages Primeur, Nicolas Testard 2014 $14.00

Touraine Gamay, Domaine Courtault-Tardieux 2011 $16.00

Terada Honke

After a week humping on planes, trains, taxis, and buses through much of Japan's main island of Honshu visiting sake breweries, I arrived on a crisp, sunny morning in Kozaki in Chiba Prefecture, a rural town near Narita. I'm here to visit Terada Honke, a unique sake producer that calls itself "The Natural Organic Japanese Sake Brewery."

Owner and toji, Masaru Terada, welcomed me and my friend at the company office and offered us black tea. Masaru-san is a smiling, friendly chap. He has a curious mind, and he asked me questions about how long I've been selling wine, my interest in sake, what kinds of wines I sell, and the intricacies of buying and selling alcohol in the US.

Masaru-san is the 24th generation head of Terada Honke, which was founded 330 years ago. He worked as a kurabito in the brewery for some years, married the boss's daughter, and succeeded his father-in-law when he passed away three years ago. It was his father-in-law who established the brewery's unique, natural approach to sake during the 1980s. Masaru-san has continued making sake this way with much success, even exporting to Europe and becoming the preferred sake at Noma.

In sake making, nothing is more important than rice. How rice is used for its sake production is what makes Terada Honke unique among breweries. Only local organically farmed rice is used. Its own hectare and a half of rice fields supply about ten percent of its needs. The rest of the rice it uses is sourced from fifteen contract rice growers in the local area.

While modern sake has emphasized rice polishing ratio (seimaibuai) Terada Honke treats this with the least importance. Masaru-san says that before modern technology sake was made with more modestly polished rice. He believes that the character has changed from traditional sake and that key flavors are stripped out by over-polishing. He pointed to a pallet of rice sacks with a polishing ratio of just 90% (only 10% was removed). This seems almost a joke because sake brewers today, like Dassai, crank out sake with rice polished down to such astonishingly small levels as 35% or less. Terada Honke uses rice with a seimaibuai ranging from from 70% to 90%.

The impressive wooden rice steamer dominates the space of this small kura. After being hand-washed, the rice is steamed then allowed to cool off naturally. Every work in the kura is done manually.

In the koji room, the cooled, steamed rice is sprinkled with koji spores, then tumbled by hand periodically by the kurabito team to ensure the koji develops evenly over the rice. It's noticeable how large the grains are because of the minimal polishing. Koji-making takes a bit longer at Terada Honke. I tasted some grains that were almost ready, they taste sweet, of course (akin to grapes ripening in winemaking), as the starches have converted into sugar. They also look and feel more like table rice, softer to the touch than the usual koji rice I've handled.

The main magic at Terada Honke happens during the development of the main mash that starts fermentation. In nearly all sake making today this process takes a couple of weeks using added bacteria and cultured yeasts. But back in the old days before these additives were invented, the process took longer because sake makers have to induce and wait for native bacteria and yeasts to develop in the mash and do their trick. It's a slow and labor-intensive. But at Terada Honke they love doing things the ancient way. The Kimoto way.

Although not the same thing, the closest parallel of the Kimoto method in winemaking is pigeage. In fact some Kimoto practitioners stomp the rice mash with their feet. But the more typical practice and the way it's done at Terada Honke is by using poles with a flat head to mash the koji rice in the wood tub until lactic acid bacteria develops allowing native yeasts to grow. Two or three workers stand around each wood tub with poles mashing the koji rice for about 30 minutes three times a day over several weeks. It's monotonous and tiring work. So they sing work songs to lift their spirits and help them coordinate their efforts. When I inquired about it, Masaru-san called a worker for a brief enactment of their Kimoto practice. This is how all sake is made at Terada Honke.


Singing The Blues At The Kura from Vineyard Gate on Vimeo.

As I watched them perform the singing eventually rose and gathered power. I felt the energy generated by their singing and imagined how this transferred to the rice being mashed to start fermentation. Nature and workers creating magic, I thought. At the end of the performance we clapped and the worker laughed and shouted to us, "Japanese Blues!" I can't think of a better way to call it.

Once the fermenting mash is developed it is brought to a vat, usually enamel coated steel tanks, but at Terada Honke I noticed they also use wood fermenters. More koji mash and rice are added to the vessel while the fermentation goes on. After a month the fermented mash is pressed and the juice is allowed to settle and aged for a year before bottling.

 The Gonin Musume is immediately appealing, with polished rice of about 60%-65%. Vibrant and only slightly sweet. It's a friendly introduction to Terada Honke.

Above is the most funky tasting sake from Terada Honke. It is pungent and quite dry. It is the first sake I tasted from them on a previous night at a restaurant in Shibuya, Tokyo. I can't say that I liked it immediately but it grew on me and I started to enjoy it with the food.

I like the old labels of Terada Honke such as the two ones above. I can't recall if Masaru-san said that they were drawn by a relative. The top one called "Fifth Daughter" is made from their own rice polished at 70%. It has a lovely fruity taste, soft textured, with a long finish.

The Katori above is polished to just 90%, unfiltered. Floral with delicious fresh, fruity flavors.

The above bottle of Hanahiraku is a koshu made from rice polished to 80%. I believe the sake was aged in bottle for 12 years. It reminds me of a sweet oloroso with its dark amber color and earthy, caramel flavors. I mentioned to Masaru-san that it would be delicious with a Parmigiano-Reggiano. On second thought it might be best as a meditative sake. I believe there should be sake that you don't have to fuss about with anything else. It's complete and it would be just for contemplation.

Masaru-san offered us a ride back to the train station in his old mini-van. As he was pulling out, I asked him to stop so I can take a quick shot of a statue of Guanyin (Kannon), the Bodhisattva of Compassion, which stands serenely in the middle of the kura grounds. It is said that the merciful deity listens to all the cries of the world. I'm sure it hears the kurabito singing the blues as they pound the rice. wy


Drink sake and check out our excellent sake selection at Vineyard Gate here.

Clos Roche Blanche 2013

I have long been obsessed by the wines of Clos Roche Blanche, which are produced in the Touraine region in the middle Loire. I first discovered their wines fifteen years ago. It was the first wines I bought imported by Louis/Dressner Selections, which were then locally distributed by Bock Vines. It was hard to find these wines in the West Coast and hardly anyone knew about them.

The vintage of Clos Roche Blanche I started selling was 1998. A terrific vintage. I bought several cases of both the Sauvignon Blanc and the Cot. I was naive to think in the late 1990s and early 2000s that people are going to like the taste of unmanipulated wines like Clos Roche Blanche and that people would get excited about wines costing just $10 a bottle. Thus, the wines gathered dust on the shelf. The Sauvignon I almost managed to sell through because it was easier to understand, but the Cot--made from vines over a century old--was a hard sell. It had tannins and high acid, the very antithesis of fruit bombs. I pulled the remaining 1 case of Sauvignon and 2 cases of the Cot and put them in our temperature-controlled storage.

Six years later Louis/Dressner Selections had become a celebrated importer and many of the wines they bring in, including the Clos Roche Blanche, have developed a cult following. I put the 1998 Clos Roche Blanche back on the shelf and, of course, they sold out like crazy. They both tasted pristine. People never even think of aging these wines because they're not expensive. Well, these Sauvignon and Cot from Clos Roche Blanche showed that price has nothing to do with quality or ageability.

My long love affair with Clos Roche Blanche is coming to an end soon. 2014 will be the last vintage to be released by the domaine, as the owners, Catherine Roussel and Didier Barrouillet are retiring. Much of their vineyards have already been leased out or sold. Thankfully, we still have the newly released 2013 wines, as well as the 2014 wines to look forward to.

Clos Roche Blanche was started by the Roussel family in the 19th century in the Touraine hills next to the Cher river. Three generations later the estate was taken over in 1975 by Catherine Roussel, who was soon joined by her husband, Didier Barrouillet. Since 1995 the vineyards have been farmed organically and some biodynamic treatments were also applied. In the cellar, vinification is done with native yeasts, without additives, and no added sulfites (except on rare occasions) even on bottling. Instead, CO2 is applied to protect the wine.

If you are any kind of wine lover, you owe it to yourself to discover the brilliant wines of Clos Roche Blanche while there's an opportunity to do so.

Touraine "Sauvignon No. 2", Clos Roche Blanche 2013 $20.00 (order here)
100% Sauvignon Blanc from vines planted on one of the great terroirs in the Loire, the Touraine hills above the Cher river. The grapes are macerated for 48 hours and the wines are aged on the lees. Fermented with native yeasts and vinified without additives and no addition of sulfites. Instead, CO2 is used during bottling to protect the wines.


Touraine Rouge "Pif", Clos Roche Blanche 2013 $18.00 (order here)
A blend of about two-thirds Cabernet Franc and one-third Cot from organically farmed grapes above the Cher river. The bunches were destemmed and vinified with native yeasts, without additives, and no addition of sulfites. Instead of sulfites, CO2 was used in bottling to protect the wines.

What Happens When Burgundians Make Grenache From the Rhone?

Rhone from Burgundy? Yes, that's right. Burgundy producers Jean-Pascal Sarnin and Jean-Marie Berrux apparently love wines from the Rhone that they decided to bring up organically grown Grenache grapes from Ardèche to the Cote d'Or! One is not supposed to do this, otherwise worlds collide and the AOC doesn't like that. But they did it anyway.

The fruit came from Gérald and Jocelyne Oustric of the highly regarded Domaine Le Mazel. Sarnin and Berrux vinified the grapes at their winery in Monthelie, as usual with natural yeasts, no additives and no added sulphites, except for a small dose at bottling. The result is as brilliant as any of their highly touted Burgundies. Yet there's a fun factor, too: the fact that you're drinking great Grenache made in Burgundy!

Vin de France "Les Muriers 2", Sarnin-Berrux 2012 $27.00 (order here)

A Day With FiFi

Fifi. What can I say. Only worthy dudes are known by just one name.

Fifi will always be associated with the Ten Bells wine bar in New York that he founded, but he's moved on to other pursuits lately. He opened a tiny wine store two years ago in Brooklyn called Passage de la Fleur, then more recently he launched his import business called Fifi Imports. He imports wines, of course, but he also added the magnificent Perceval knife selection.

I'm elated to collaborate with Fifi in introducing more great natural wines to San Francisco Bay Area wine lovers. Since starting Vineyard Gate 16 years ago, I've been keen on carrying wines made without junk. I was one of the first to sell in the Bay Area wines from Yvon Metras and Clos Roche Blanche back in 2000, then I brought in the West Coast for the first time the wines of Domaine l'Octavin and Jean-Marc Brignot. While I would've loved to carry more natural wines from the outset, unfortunately, their availability in the States was tough, as there were very few sources even in the East Coast.

Today, finding natural wines in the US has gotten a lot better, especially with Fifi entering the scene with a terrific portfolio of producers. While most natural wine producers we've seen are from Beaujolais, the Loire and, the Jura, what's unique about Fifi's selection is that he's scoped out some of the best producers in the South of France. Vineyards along the Mediterranean, from Provence to the Sud-Ouest, is now the hotbed of rising natural wine producers in France. Land is cheap and plentiful. The weather is warm and sunny, which makes it easier to producer natural wines.

Fifi flew to the West Coast last November to launch his import selections. He hit the road touring Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. We kicked off his San Francisco visit with a store tasting, then a wine dinner at Belcampo in San Francisco.

We made Bacchus proud as we opened over 30 different bottles that one night. Everyone who attended were charmed by both Fifi and all the wines we drank. These wines were all new and unknown in the States. It was an eye-opening experience. Not only have natural wines come a long way from the days of experimentation, but drinkers are starting to appreciate the good ones for what they are, delicious and expressive in character.

Here are some of the wines that we stock from Fifi's Imports. Give them a try!

Vin de France "Alfred & Leon", Les Vignes Herbel (2012) $20.00 (order here)
A 50-50 blend of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, it was vinified naturally without additives and no added sulfites, except for a small dose at bottling. Medium-bodied, with charming earthy black fruit flavors

Vin de France (Anjou White) "Fragile", La Grange Aux Belles 2012 $25.00 (order here)
100% Chenin Blanc. Vinified without addition of sulfites. Bone-dry. Intense and layered flavors.

Vin de France "Brise d'Aunis", La Grange Aux Belles 2013 $22.00 (order here)
Pure Pineau d'Aunis from vines in Anjou. Bright and lovely.

Vin de France "Akoibon", YoYo 2013 $40.00 (order here)
All Mourvedre from the micro-estate in Roussillon of Laurence Manya Krief. She always vinifies whole-cluster using carbonic maceration. No additives and sulfites are used in the winemaking. Elegant and juicy.

Vin de France "Chime-R", YoYo 2013 $40.00 (order here)
A delicious complex wine from a blend of 40% Grenache Noir, 40% Grenache Blanc, and 20% Mourvedre

Vin de Table "Plus noir que rouge", Domaine Les Sabots d'Helene 2013 $29.00 (order here)
Without "junk" is how vigneron Alban Michel simply describes how he made this special cuvee from 85 year-old Carignan vines. Vinifed without additives and no added sulfites, it has the delicious warmth and power of a Southern France wine.

Mikkeller Mission Chinese Food

Mikkeller, based in Denmark, is one of the greatest brewers in the world. They constantly create bold new flavors that surprise and delight, as well as expand the notion of beer. For a wine lover like me this is totally exciting!

Here is one of Mikkeller's latest creations, a collaboration with the highly celebrated San Francisco pop-up restaurant, Mission Chinese Food. Brewed in Belgium, it is a pale pilsen flavored with Sichuan peppercorn! At 4.5 ABV, it is ight in body and alcohol but intense in taste. Not quite fire-breathing but gently spicy with subtle herbal notes that enhance its refreshing taste. A great beer with appetizers or small plates, perhaps with some fried garlic or a bowl of wok-tossed mussels with Thai chili.

Mikkeller Mission Chinese Food 330ml $5.85 (order here)