White Wines That Are Better with Age
Usually when we think of wines that age well we most often think of cabernet sauvignon, Barolo, Brunello di Montelcino and fortified wines like Port and Madeira. But, there are white wines that are better with age.

Red or white, there are certain conditions that allow some wines to age well. Location, vintage – ideal weather conditions, fermentation process and even certain yeast used in fermentation.

Red wines get their tannins from contact with the skin and stems. High tannins allow for greater aging capacity. White wine, which normally don’t have tannins because they rarely have contact with the skin, need to be higher in sugar and acid to age well.

So which whites age the best?

German Rieslings, because they are high in sugar and acid, will age as well as a cabernet.

Burgundy-style Chardonnays because they have good acidity and minerality, Most California Chardonnays are low in acid. The lack of acid makes the wine rich and buttery but it won’t age well.

Sauternes and late harvest wines can take years to come to full maturity because of the high sugar levels and botrytised fruit.

Chablis age well because of the acidity.

A couple of examples of well-aged whites that we’ve tried:

Michaud Vineyard Chelone Appellation Chardonnay 2002
Michael Michaud’s vineyard in Monterey is considered a California Grand Cru vineyard. Former winemaker at Chalone, Michaud started his own winery in 1998.

Gold straw color.Aromas of peach and apple with a hint of vanilla and butterscotch. Flavors of pear and lemoncella with nice minerallity. Balanced and well structured with a long smooth finish. As it sits in the glass, aromas and flavors continue to surprise and delight. Drink now. At Wine Exchange $20

ZD 2006 Reserve Chardonnay Napa Valley
This is the one with the black label. Gold color. Aromas of pineapple, pear and orange blossom with a hint of white flowers. Flavors of lemon, pear with a hint of vanilla and oak. Full bodied, balanced with a long, rich finish. I love this wine. Will cellar well for 8 to 10 years. The extended barrel aging -15 months contributes to the longevity of this wine. Multiple gold and double gold medal winner. 90 points from Wine Spectator. $45 dollars at K&L.

State Fair Medal Winners
The California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition is the oldest and most prestigious wine competition in North America. Each year, thousands of California wines are entered into the competition for the chance to win one of many coveted awards from the State Fair’s panel of expert wine judges.

After the competition, you can go online and they will have posted all the gold, double gold, silver and bronze medal winners in each category. We like to check out the winners and try as many as possible. If you wait too long to try certain wines, you’ll find they are sold out. These awards are a big deal and are watched by wine lovers around the world – so you have to move quickly.

At the State Fair Wine Garden you have an opportunity to taste the award winning wines from the competition as well as the wine of the day. Cheeses, fruit and bread are available to complete your wine tasting.

Each year, in addition to the wine competition, the California State Fair Commercial Wine Program recognizes a California vineyard which has consistently – over several growing seasons – produced grapes that have contributed directly to wine of superior quality and marketability within commercial sales systems and among fine wine judging. This year’s “California Vineyard of the Year” award winner is Bien Nacido Vineyards® of Santa Maria. Bien Nacido grows some of the finest grapes in the state.

Although Bien Nacido doesn’t produce its own wine, it is the source of fruit for many top California wineries.

2008 Fess Parker Bien Nacido Chardonnay
Light straw color. Aromas of pear, baked pineapple, cinnamon and apple, with a touch of graham cracker and vanilla. Flavors are clean and bright with hints of citrus, lemon creme and apple combined with spice and subtle oak. Well balanced with good acidity and a nice creamy, mineral finish. Wine Enthusiast gave it 96 Points! $34

Louis Latour 2007 Pouilly-Fuissé
This French chardonnay is a favorite. One of the white wines that can be aged – 2 to 5 years. Unlike American chardonnays, this Burgundy region of France produces a mineral flavored wine that leans toward ‘crisp’ rather than ‘buttery’. Perfect for summer.

Light straw color. Aromas of apple, honey and a hint of citrus. Flavors of pear and apple with hints of lemon and stony minerals. Balanced with a crisp, clean finish. Serve this wine with artichoke and curry dipping sauce. Yum. Widely available. $15

Artichoke with Curry Dip
Cook artichoke:
Cut about 3/4 inch to an inch off the tip of the artichoke.

Cut excess stem, leaving about a half inch on the artichoke. The stems are bitter and stringy.

Using kitchen scissors, cut off the tips of all of the leaves.

Rinse the artichokes in cold water.

Place artichokes in large pot and add water to 3/4 full. Bring to boil. Reduce heat, cove and simmer for 30 to 60 mins. If one of outer the leaves can be easily pulled off, it’s done.

Quick Curry Dip
1/4 C mayonnaise
Tbsp. lemon juice
Curry powder to taste (start with 1/2 tsp. and add a little more until you like the taste)

Rainy Day Wines
It’s been raining, on and off, for a couple of days, and for some reason rain and soup just seem to go together. They had some nice leeks at the store so I decided to make leek & potato soup. It’s pretty simple to make and goes perfectly with European style chardonnays. With a rotisserie chicken and  some crusty bread, we had a great meal while watching the rain. (The soup recipe is after the fold.)

Two wines that go well with the meal:

Louis Latour 2008 Pouilly Fuissé
Light golden color with a touch of green. Aromas of peach and apricot. Flavors of pear, lemon and green apple with slight minerality. The balance is good with a smooth, satisfying finish. Drink  now or hold a few years. Excellent value. Costco has it for $16

Laetitia Estate Chardonnay 2007
This wine was chosen by the Wall Street Journal as one of their 12 best wine buys of 2009.
Golden yellow color. Aromas of lime and orange with hints of pineapple and cantaloupe. Flavors of pear, pineapple and lemon with the slightest hints of oak and melon. Buttery texture, good balance. Smooth medium finish. Another great value. Wine House on Cotner Ave. in west LA has it for $11

Leak & Potato Soup Recipe:

Leek & Potato Soup
Ingredients:
•    ½ lb leeks
•    2-3 medium Russet (or other starchy) potatoes
•    2 Tbsp unsalted butter
•    1 medium onion, peeled and roughly chopped
•    1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
•    ½ cup dry white wine
•    1 qt chicken broth – canned or homemade
•    Kosher salt, to taste
•    Ground white pepper, to taste

Preparation:
Cut white part of leeks into half inch slices

Peel the potatoes and cut them into pieces about the same size as the leeks.

In a heavy-bottomed soup pot, heat the butter over a low-to-medium heat.

Add the onion, garlic and leeks and cook 3 to 5 minutes or until the onion is translucent.

Add the wine and cook for another minute or two or until the wine seems to have reduced by about half.

Add the broth and the potatoes. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Then lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until the potatoes are soft enough that they can easily be pierced with a knife. Don’t let them get mushy, though.

Remove from heat and purée in a blender, working in batches, using pulse mode.

Note: Make sure lid is on blender and don’t fill with more than 1/3 with hot liquid.

Pour puréed soup into another pot and bring to a simmer again, adding more broth or stock to adjust the thickness if necessary.

Season to taste with Kosher salt and white pepper.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream.

Gallo’s Turning Leaf Gets Makeover
From Financial Times:
Napa Valley, the seat of California’s wine industry, is not exactly a fashion mecca. The pastoral towns dotted around the vineyards are more Buddh­ist than Burberry, more caps-’n’-culottes than Chanel. So slightly tipsy heads turned from cellars to catwalks when it was recently announced that Basso & Brooke, British designers known for their use of fabric decorated with pornographic prints, had been appointed “designers in residence” to Turning Leaf, E&J Gallo’s traditional wine brand.

Basso & Brooke will create the wrapping for 2,000 bottles, curate a blog, design some limited-edition umbrellas and a retail installation for a London department store.

Turning Leaf could use the help. “This isn’t seen as a fashionable wine, at least in the UK,” admitted designer Christopher Brooke. The winemakers clearly hope that working with Basso & Brooke will change all that. For their part, Brooke says, it’s more about profile-raising and “the press aspect than making it commercially available”.

The bottle of Turning Leaf chardonnay shrink-wrapped in a sleeve patterned on Basso & Brooke’s spring/summer 2010 collection, features snow leopard fur, erupting volcanoes, roses and psychedelic patterns.

Does the bottle make you want to buy the wine?

Gallo Wine
E. & J. Gallo is the largest winemaker in the world. Since 1964, we’ve known Gallo for it’s top selling ‘jug wine’ – Hearty Burgundy.

According to Gallo spokeswoman, Kristina Kelly, “The wine was a favorite of winery founders Ernest and Julio Gallo because it was the kind of hearty red wine they were raised on and it went well with their evening meal.”

In 1975, Gallo introduced ‘Carlo Rossi’ wines which come in 12 varietals and still come in the iconic jug Gallo is known for.

In the 1990’s wine drinkers were gravitating toward more expensive wines. Even though the winery had been producing premium wines since the 1980’s, Gallo was still perceived as a low-end brand. The company made the decision to distance itself from the Gallo name by producing varietal wines under new labels. Turning Leaf and Gossamer Bay, produced at the Modesto winery, pushed Gallo into the mid-priced range – typically sold in grocery stores.

Today, Gallo produces excellent wines from Sonoma and from their Louis Martini Winery in Napa.

Gallo Family 2007 Two Rock Chardonnay
A French Chablis style wine with aromas of apple, pear and citrus with hints of blossoms. Flavors of pear and green apple with a hint of lime and flint. A crisp, medium bodied wine with a soft mineral finish. No oak influence. A quality wine for this price point.

From Robert Parker, Wine Advocate:

“…the 2007 Chardonnay Two Rock Vineyard comes from a cool site planted with old Wente clones. Ninety percent is aged in stainless steel and 10% in oak. An outstanding Chardonnay, with a style not dissimilar from a top-class French Chablis, it reveals notes of white corn, quince, powdered rock, wet steel, nectarines and lemon blossoms, medium to full body, and a crisp, fresh, pure style. It should drink nicely for 4-5+ years.” 92 Points, February 2010. $28 at the winery, Wine Exchange has it for $19.

Serve with Chef Charlie Trotter’s Vidalia Onion Soup with Wild Rice & Swiss Cheese Croutons. Also pairs well with with shellfish, lighter pasta dishes, and grilled chicken.

Vidalia Onion Soup with Wild Rice and Swiss Cheese Croutons

INGREDIENTS

4 Vidalia onions, julienned

1/4 cup unsalted butter

6 cups chicken broth

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

3/4 cup chopped herbs (such as basil, chives, tarragon, and parsley)

8 thin slices French bread

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

4 ounces sliced Swiss cheese

1 1/2 cups cooked wild rice

PREPARATION
Sauté the onions with the butter in a large sauce-pan over medium heat for 30 to 40 minutes or until caramelized. Add the broth and simmer for 20 minutes.

Wrap the herbs in a small piece of cheesecloth and tie with kitchen string to form a sachet. Place the sachet in the onion broth and simmer for 1 minute. Remove the sachet and discard.

To prepare the croutons: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Brush both sides of the bread slices with the olive oil. Place the bread on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes, or until light golden brown, turning once. Lay the cheese over the croutons while they are still hot.

Place some of the wild rice in each bowl and ladle the onion broth into the bowls. Place 2 croutons alongside the soup.
Serves 4

3 Wine Price Points – One Great Winemaker
While searching out the next “diamond in the rough” of good, affordable wine, it’s best to take in two considerations: the land the grapes are grown on and the style of the winemaker. One of the top winemakers in the world is 71 year old Aubert de Villaine.

Monsieur de Villaine’s wine-making philosophy emphasizes, above all else, that great wine is made in the vineyards and that the winemaker’s role is to do the minimum necessary to produce the finest fruit consistent with total respect for the individual terroir of each appellation.

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti estate in Burgundy, France is considered to be among the world’s greatest wine producers. The wines are also among the world’s most expensive.

In 2001, a lot of seven bottles of Montrachet 1978 from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti was sold at Sotheby’s in New York for $167,500, or $23,929 per bottle – an extraordinary price for a white wine, even in the rarified world of wine collecting. At the time it was the most expensive wine ever sold in America. What happened was that two avid collectors were bidding against each other and got carried away, each refusing to yield as the price rose through the stratosphere.

Today, the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti is Co-Owned and Co-Directed by Aubert de Villaine. Aubert’s father and grandfather were both Directors of the Domaine. Because he was raised at the Domaine and had intimate familiarity with the day-to-day operations of the winery, he was a natural to become the Co-director in 1974.  Learn more:  Read

A & P de Villaine
When he isn’t making wine for the great Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, Aubert de Villaine and his wife own and run a domain in nearby Bouzeron called A & P de Villaine. This domaine is extensively  planted with Aligoté – a white grape used to make dry white wines – similar in style and fruit characteristics to Pinot gris. Aligoté is considered the second most important grape in Burgundy – after Chardonnay.
See: Website

Domaine A et P De Villaine Bouzeron 2007
From the golden Aligoté doré grape, which gives lowers yield and more aromatic wines than its cousin, the Aligoté vert. A lively, fruity wine, but it also has a finesse and roundness. These qualities lend it great versatility. To best appreciate the freshness and fruit, it would be drunk young, within two or three years. To allow the wine to fully develop fullness and “fatness”, age it for up to ten years. It should be served chilled, at about 54°F, as an apéritif, with seafood, or with a number of cheeses (goat cheese, Cantal, Beaufort, Parmesan, Roquefort). $20

Hyde de Villaine “HdV”
If you thought running two wineries would be enough to keep the de Villaines busy, Aubert and Pamela are also involved in Hyde de Villaine (HdV), a highly regarded winery in California’s Carneros District.
See: Website

2006 Hyde de Villaine “HdV” Carneros Chardonnay
“Showing all of the richness and layered complexity that we have come to expect from HDV, this head-turning offering is at once fairly powerful but comes with an uncommon sense of finesse. It smells of well-ripened apples, sweet toast and wisps of roasted grains, and its deep, full-scaled flavors unfold with elements of minerals and spice lifting it above simple fruitiness. Full-bodied and slightly fleshy in feel with optimal acids affording it very fine balance, it is a serious Chardonnay that will take to aging, but it is wholly fascinating now.” – 93 points Connoisseurs Guide to California Wine. $56

Bev Mo’s Wilfred Wong
When you walk down the wine isles of Beverages and More, you can’t help but notice the majority of wines are rated by Wilfred Wong. On my first visit to the local store, I wondered: Is this a real guy? What does he know about wine, anyway?

Wilfred is a real person who has been BevMo’s wine buyer since 1995. Before that, he was buying wine for his family’s wine shop in Berkeley, CA.

As the e-commerce cellar master for Beverages & More’s 100+ stores in California and Arizona, Wilfred is the man responsible for evaluating every wine on the shelves. That means tasting more than 8000 wines a year.

Besides choosing which wines the stores will carry, Wong has a say in the 50+ custom wines commissioned specifically for BevMo.

One of those wines is a Zolo Winery chardonnay from Mendoza, Argentina.

The 2008 Zolo Gaucho Select Unoaked Chardonnay
Golden yellow color. Tropical fruit and pear aromas. Flavors of ripe apples and white flowers with a hint of honey. Balanced  with a clean, crisp finish. Pair with soft white cheese and crusty french loaf. $9.99

Crème de La Crema
By Virginia Boone – Press Democrat

Back when Melissa Stackhouse was studying winemaking at UC Davis in the 1990s, she figured any serious California winemaker would go to the Napa Valley and make cabernet sauvignon. Making high-minded hearty reds, she thought, would be the path to glory.

And for a time, so she did. But paths can take funny turns and lead to somewhere unexpected. Now Stackhouse is almost a decade into being the winemaker at La Crema, a Santa Rosa-based pinot noir and chardonnay producer devoted to California’s cooler-climate growing regions — Sonoma Coast, Russian River Valley, Anderson Valley, Monterey and Carneros.

“Pinots in my mind were really average for a long time,” Stackhouse said. “When I graduated from Davis, I was not wooed by it. I think we’ve come a long ways, though we have a ways to go to define our California style.”

She is attempting to do just that at La Crema, where she oversees the making of pinots and chardonnays from a series of marquee appellations throughout the state.

“They’re one of the best quality high-production wines,” said Kenneth Goldfine, the general manager of Syrah Restaurant, where he carries several of La Crema’s wines. “If I carry the pinot by the glass, bar none, it turns over faster than any other pinot. There’s a certain comfort level, people order it and they like it.”

One of Jess Jackson’s entities, owned by his daughters, Laura Jackson Giron and Jennifer Jackson, this is no boutique operation; La Crema makes some 200,000 cases of its Sonoma Coast pinot noir alone. But even at that size, the wines are consistently delicious and impressively over-deliver on price, providing the pinot or chardonnay lover with respectable bottles of locally grown wine for about $20.

“Even though some of our wines are a larger case amount, we still make wine like we’re a small winery,” Stackhouse said. “We produce the pinot noir in open-top fermenters, keep all the lots separate from outside growers, from our estate vineyards, as if each one of those vineyard blocks is going to be a wine on its own, but in the end we blend.”

Moreover, every bin of grapes that comes in is hand-sorted, a real nod to artisanal-style winemaking and a surprising fact given La Crema’s size.

Stackhouse explains that to get it done, she has five people sorting at any one time during harvest. She relies on some 20 international interns and another 20 local interns, changing people out after every two hours through a process of sorting that runs 24 hours a day.

That level of detail, along with separate lots and Stackhouse’s ability to cultivate new sources of fruit wherever they may be, adds up to good-quality wines.

Take La Crema’s 2007 Monterey Chardonnay, the inaugural vintage for this wine. It’s a blend of about 250 distinct vineyard blocks all barrel-fermented separately. Stackhouse and her team will taste the lots blind all year long, putting together trial blends to see what they like or don’t like and then decide on a direction for the final blend. They don’t allow themselves to rely on whatever the blend was the year before.

“Years ago, people would bring huge amounts of fruit in and blend it all up and make juice and then they’d ferment it and that was it,” she said. “Most winemakers now truly believe the integrity of your blend resides in the integrity of those small lots.”

The results provide real insight into an appellation’s better characteristics. The 2007 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay ($20), for example, is a citrus-tinged, mouthwatering chardonnay that, as Stackhouse describes, doesn’t “have any elbows,” with just a cameo appearance of oak, juicy but not flabby, a result of its cool-climate fruit.

The 2007 Los Carneros Chardonnay ($30), another of the winery’s inaugural vintages, on the other hand, is full of lemon zest and stony minerality, a little more coy, with some of the grapes coming from the Durell Vineyard.

The winery’s 2007 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir ($24), which includes fruit from La Crema’s estate Annapolis Vineyard, is all cherry and plum, full of vivid fruit and silky tannins. Its Monterey Pinot Noir ($24), the first vintage of which is the 2007, is more savory, first showing a taste of herbs before delivering notes of strawberry — a more “dirt-driven” wine, as Stackhouse herself puts it.

La Crema didn’t always belong to Jackson. It’s been around since 1979, suffering through a period of bankruptcy before being taken into the Jackson Family Estates fold in 1993. Stackhouse credits Jackson and former La Crema winemakers Dan Goldfield, now at Dutton-Goldfield, and Jeff Stewart, now at Buena Vista, for turning the winery’s fortunes around and reclaiming its reputation in a relatively short period of time.

But it is Stackhouse’s mission now to take the winery to the next level, to build on its recent past and find new, amazing grape sources to work with. To that end, she is increasingly excited about Monterey.

“In my mind, Monterey is probably the coldest appellation in California,” she said. “You get early bud break, fruit comes in late, there’s long hang time, it’s dynamic, incredibly windy and one of the only grape-growing areas that’s not a monoculture. You’ve got grapes next to lettuce next to artichokes.”

She’s particularly stoked about an estate vineyard she’s developing with vineyard manager Hector Bedolla called Panorama, tightly spaced with many different clones that’s not far from Pisoni Vineyards, a renowned Santa Lucia Highlands grower whose pinots Stackhouse particularly loves. It’s no surprise then that La Crema is also considering working with more growers, or buying vineyard land, from the Santa Lucia Highlands, or possibly, Santa Rita Hills, another great spot for pinot and chardonnay near Santa Barbara.

“It’s a stunning product,” added Goldfine, “with a small winery feel.”

Australian Winery Sues Franzia Cos Over New Australian Wine
Chad Bray – Dow Jones Newswires

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–The Australian winery that produces [yellow tail] wine has sued two companies affiliated with Fred T. Franzia, the vintner that produces an ultralow-priced wine nicknamed “Two Buck Chuck,” over the introduction of a low-cost Australian wine.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Wednesday, alleges Bronco Wine Co. and Barrel Ten Quarter Circle Inc. have introduced an Australian Chardonnay under the name [Down Under], with a label that infringes on Casella Wines PTY Ltd.’s trademarked label for [yellow tail].

Casella claims the [Down Under] labels are substantially similar to Casella’s trademarked label, which pictures a wallaby and has brackets as part of the name.

“Bronco’s use of Casella’s iconic square brackets and its use of Australian-centric wording in connection with the sale of Australian wine are likely to confuse consumers,” the lawsuit said.

Franzia is the chief executive of Bronco, which produces an ultralow-cost wine under the Charles Shaw label that is sold at Trader Joe’s stores and is nicknamed “Two Buck Chuck.”

Bronco, in part, buys wine in bulk for pennies on the dollar from vineyards that need to dispose of excess wine before the next season. It then often sells the wine for $1.99 to $4.00 a bottle, according to the lawsuit.

Casella sells its [yellow tail] wine for about $7 a bottle, according to the complaint.

Last year, the cost of surplus Australian Chardonnay fell to about 60 cents a liter – an extraordinarily low and unsustainable price, according to the lawsuit.

Bronco purchased unwanted bulk Australian Chardonnary at record-low prices at the end of the 2008 season, the lawsuit said.

A spokesman for Bronco didn’t immediately have a comment when reached Thursday.