News from Vinestone Wine Company

The following is an abbreviated form of an article appearing in the upcoming issue of the Bearspaw Beat. If you are from there, or know someone who is, consult the October issue for more wines to find!

Wine Diamonds

When Warren Buffet said that five minutes of indiscretion can undo a lifetime of good work, he was talking about wine. Not all wine mind you, but certain wines that, despite high quality pedigrees, became associated with indifferent, simple, or at worst, plain poor products.

The likes of Beaujolais, Riesling and Chardonnay are inherently high-quality wines, however the annual Beaujolais Nouveau campaign, the blue bottled Liebfraumilchen and the deluge of high-volume, over-oaked, heady Chardonnays of the late 1990's has turned many a wine lover solidly against these high-potential offerings.

Because of a roughly linear inverse relationship between wine quantity and wine quality (that is, the more you make the worse the wine), high demand for these wine styles led to overproduction and consequently a reduction in those very qualities that grabbed our palates to begin with. Though much is missing in this oversimplified idea, few of us can deny that demand borne of fashion often leads to a fast saturation of low-quality imitations.

Instead of writing off these rubies in the rough and trying to find the 'next big thing', it would be worth turning over some old stones. The time is nigh for a revival, to rediscover wines from these same roots that express individuality, unique character and lasting quality.

A famously light, fruity wine is the oft-snorted-at Beaujolais. Though a Vissoux2

few stalwarts still appreciate the simple charms of this friendly libation, many are unaware of the singular quality the area can produce. History and tradition have the newly finished wine from the recent harvest landing in Paris on the third Thursday in November. Considering the grapes were only picked in early September, this is as young and fresh as it gets. Big parties that celebrate the creation and arrival of the new wine are held around the world. The global Beaujolais Nouveau party phenomenon was at its hottest in the 1980's. Don't misread me here: celebrating the harvest with the simple, juicy, unpretentious New Beaujolais is not wrong. The problem lies in that the collective North American awareness ends here, and is unfortunately unaware of the much more structured, complex and long-lived wines that hail from 10 villages or 'Cru' in the north of the zone. Put simply, I recently tasted a 41 year old wine from the Morgon Cru and it was magnificent.

Riesling is the great underdog of white grapes. She has taken it from many sides and is having a heck of a time recovering. The wine cognoscenti regard her as the greatest white grape bar none. If intensity and complexity of aromas, length and concentration of flavours, and aging potential are measuring sticks of quality, Riesling scores high in all categories. However a couple of misfortunes have befallen her, starting with the 1970's glut of simpler, less distinct wines made largely of the lesser grape Muller-Thurgau and finishing when off-dry and semi-sweet wine styles fell out of fashion. From the perspective of pure drinking excitement Riesling exploration and experimentation offers endless adventures. The range from bone dry and searing crisp to lusciously sweet and viscous makes for a drinking experience that sends shudders up and down the spine, something like licking lime juice and honey off of the frozen blade of a samurai sword. The delicate dance from tart to sweet, stone to steel to citrus and back makes these wines so scintillating. For drier styles plunder Alsace, Australia and Ontario, or for off-dry to sweet styles invade both Germany and the remarkable offerings from Ontario as well.

Finally, the chameleon Chardonnay. We all have a chardonnay in our life Geoffroy

but may not realize it. Maybe it's that icy co-worker who's indifference is intriguing (Chablis), or the grilled cheese sandwich on white bread (inexpensive Auzzie), or that remarkable classical piano piece the name of which you never remember, but every time you hear it it sends you somewhere else (Puligny-Montrachet), and maybe, just maybe, it's that one person who always makes you flutter (Blanc de Blancs Champagne). Though the over oaked, over produced, blowsy in-your-face chardonnays earned her a reputation of unsubtle, tiresome easiness, she need not be. You see, chardonnay was created for one thing and one thing only: to give pleasure. The form of pleasure is up to you, and it doesn't have to be fancy or expensive pleasure, though it can be; nor does it have to be cheap and dirty pleasure. It can be the pleasure derived from accomplishment, the painful pleasure of physical or intellectual effort, or the pleasure of a long-deserved indulgence. Whatever gets you going, there is a chardonnay for you. Find yours.

It's hard to stay good and easy to fall. Look at celebrities. We love 'em love 'em love 'em until they are reported to have done something of questionable moral judgement. Then we love to condemn them. It's not so much that they deserve a second chance so much as they deserve the benefit of the doubt to begin with. For our own selfish sake it is healthier to assume that more lies beneath the surface. Thus, the next time you come to Vinestone don't say "ABC" (Anything But Chardonnay) to your salesperson. Instead ask "What different kinds of Chardonnay-made wines do you have?". I guarantee there will be one that gives you pleasure.

Matthew J. Browman
Vinestone Wine Co.

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