The Booklovers' Guide to Wine

by Patrick Alexander

  Mosel-Saar-Ruwer: The Anbaugebeite of the Mosel–Saar–Ruwer encompasses three river valleys: the Moselle, which runs from the French and Luxembourg frontier in the west to the river Rhine at Koblenz, and its two small tributaries, the Saar and the Ruwer. These Moselle vineyards are among the most northerly in the world; even in a good summer they receive little sunshine and never experience the high temperatures needed to produce high sugar content. Consequently, the Riesling wines, though deliciously delicate and refreshing, are pale in color and low in alcohol.

  Because much of the land is composed of slate and granite, the river twists and bends around the granite ridges as it flows northeast to the Rhine. The combination of poor topsoil with slate and granite creates the perfect well-drained mineral environment for the crisp Riesling, and the spot where the river twists away from a granite outcrop leaves a perfect south-facing slope to plant the vines. In order to maximize their exposure to the sun, vineyards are planted on extremely steep, south facing slopes. Some slopes are angled at an incline of sixty-five degrees, which makes mechanical harvesting impossible and manual harvesting physically draining as well as extremely dangerous.

  Mid-Mosel: The best Mosels come from the middle of the district, especially from two famous villages, Piesporter and Bernkastel, both located where the river bends sharply beneath a south-facing granite outcrop. As we saw previously, Piesport’s reputation was built upon two specific vineyards, or einzellagen, Goldtropfchen and Schubertslay, but because of lax labeling laws, the identity of the two has been lost in the vagueness of the Piesporter Grosslage.

  Bernkastel is commonly recognized as having some of the best vineyards in Germany. Pale-whites offer a gleam of green, and pale-gold which coats the mouth with sharpness and scent. Bernkastel has ten single vineyard sites: Lay, Riesenberg, Bratehoefchen, Matheisbildchen, Schlossberg, Kurfuerstlay, Johannisbruenchen, Rosengaertchen, Sephaus, and Doctor, of which Doctor is the most famous of all. Unfortunately the Bernkastel Grosslage on the label makes it difficult to know what quality wine you will actually find in the bottle.

  Saar: Saar is a small north-flowing tributary of the Mosel near the Luxembourg frontier. Planted by the Romans, all the Riesling vineyards are on steep, south-facing slopes of slate soil. Since the early Middle Ages, most of the vineyards and estates have been owned by the Catholic Church, monasteries, or mysterious and anonymous anstalts headquartered in Liechtenstein. Since most harvests fail due to poor weather, only three or four years in a decade will produce a decent wine, which means that only the extremely wealthy can afford to maintain vineyards in the Saar and Ruwer river valleys. However, when the conditions are good, then the Rieslings of these two rivers produce some of the rarest and most expensive wines in the world. They are famous for being lush, fragrant, and fruity, combining the most delicate balance of high acidity and rich sweetness. The most famous vineyard is Scharzhofberg, which dates back at least as far as 1037 and is part of the Weingut Egon Müller estate, is widely considered to be among the greatest white wines in the world. They offer a subtle combination of intensity and elegance that is simply incomparable.

  In 2006, Egon Müller eisweins were selling at €1,550 per bottle, and in 2001, twenty-four bottles of Egon Müller 1994 Scharzhofberg Trockenbeerenauslese sold for €4,718 each! The legendary 1959 vintage is priceless, but impossible to find.

  Ruwer: The Ruwer is another north-flowing tributary of the Mosel, very similar to Saar but much smaller. In good years the wines produced are much more perfumed than Saar wines and are equally sought after. The Karthäuserhof vineyard, for example, was officially founded in 1335 (although its origins go back to Roman times), and today is famous for its dry Rieslings. Nearly all the vineyards in the valley have been owned directly or indirectly by Catholic abbeys or monasteries—which might explain why the Vatican City has by far the highest per-capita wine consumption in the world:—seventy-four liters per annum, per priest, or nun.

  Eastern Europe

  During the Roman Empire, Eastern Europe had far more vineyards than the Western Empire. East European wines were considered some of the best in the known world. Following the collapse of Roman rule, however, with the lack of any political stability, the wine industry fell into disrepair. The arrival of Islam during the Middle Ages, followed by communism in the twentieth century, completely demolished all memory of the region’s glorious winemaking traditions.

  But the glory will return, and already some of the old names are returning to the world stage.

  Greece: As discussed elsewhere, Greece has been producing great wines for over 6,500 years. The reputation of, and demand for, Greek wines continued through the Middle Ages and beyond, traded by the Venetians and always commanding high prices in Northern Europe for its sweet white wines. The Islamic, Ottoman Turks controlled Greece for about four hundred years, and unfortunately destroyed the ancient culture of wine production until Greek independence in 1821. However, some wine cultivation survived in the more remote regions, especially on the islands such as Santorini. Since the late 1980s, serious wine production has moved Greek wines beyond the level of the resin-taste of Retsina wine. Wine grapes are now grown throughout the Greek mainland as well as the islands. Top regions include the Cyclades, especially Santorini, where Assyrtiko and other vines are tied into a basket shape to protect the fruit against the continuous wind, and the Peloponnese peninsula, particularly Neméa, which produces full-bodied, juicy reds like Agiorgitiko.

  Greek Varietals:

  Assyrtiko (White): Perhaps the most famous of Greek varietals, this wine is always associated with the island of Santorini, whose relentless winds and dry, desert like volcanic soil create both dry and sweet white wines with a powerfully acidic and mineral finish. The vines are traditionally woven into a nest-like protection against the winds, which ensures a long, slow, and full ripening. Some of the vines on Santorini are reputed to be over five hundred years old. The Greek Gods created this wine to be drunk with fresh seafood—especially octopus.

  Moschofilero (White): This pink-skinned grape from the high plateau of the central Peloponnesian peninsula produces notably aromatic white and rose wines, which are light, crisp, and low in alcohol. With fresh scents of limes and roses, this makes the perfect al fresco wine for summer picnics.

  Agiorgtiko (Red): This is the most-widely grown of Greek varietals, and its thick-skinned berries are capable of a wide range of styles, from light-reds to Robert Parker-style fruit bombs. Grown most notably in the northeastern Peloponnesian region of Nemea, the wines have succulent tannins which enable the wines to age well in oak. Delicious with goat roasted over an open flame.

  Xinomavro (Red): The most famous wines made with the Xinomavro grape come from Naoussa in the Macedonian region of northern Greece. Xinomavro means acid-black in Greek, which aptly describes both the color of the grapes and the resulting wine. The wines, with their lingering taste of olives, are high in both tannins and acid, which means they can be aged for a very long time. Perfect with Greek salad and feta cheese.

  With lush velvety reds made from the Agiorgitiko grape and minerally, crisp, and bone-dry whites made from the Assyrtiko grape, the serious wines of Greece are once again asserting their classic heritage.

  Hungary: Described by Louis XIV as “Vinum Regum, Rex Vinorum” (the King of Wines and the Wine of Kings), Tokaji Aszú, the unctuous, honeyed wine made from super-concentrated, botrytized grapes, has long been the archetypical Hungarian wine since it was first documented in 1571. Beloved by Thomas Jefferson and Russian czars alike, Emperor Franz Josef (who was also King of Hungary) had a tradition of sending Queen Victoria Tokaji wine as a gift every year on her birthday—one bottle for every month she had lived, twelve for each year. On her eighty-first and final birthday (1900), this totaled an enviable 972 bottles. As sought after and expensive in the twenty-first century as it was in the eighteenth, these ebulliently floral, lusciously fruity wines are traditionally a blen
d of local grapes including varieties of Muscat, the world’s oldest varietal. Even under Ottoman and then Soviet rule, Hungary still managed to somehow produce Tokaji wines, which have never lost their international appeal. Following the collapse of the Hungarian Communist regime in 1989, Hugh Johnson, the great English wine writer, founded a winery to revive the fortunes of this “Vinum Regum,” which he called “Royal Tokaji.” This sweet golden wine, tasting of ripe peaches, apricots, pears, and mandarin oranges, is made from three local varietals: Furmint, Hárslevelű, and Muscat de Lunel. The other famous wine from Hungary is Egri Bikavér—Bull’s Blood—which, although weakened under Soviet rule, is now once more being made in the traditional manner:dark, strong and powerful.

  Georgia: As discussed elsewhere, Georgia’s border with Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan is the site of the world’s oldest winemaking activity. This is where wine has been made and drunk longer than anywhere else in history. Even today, the Neolithic winemaking techniques dating back to Noah are still in use. The vast, underground amphorae called kvevri are still being used to produce wine in the traditional manner. Through most of the twentieth century, almost all of Georgian wine was exported to the Soviet Union, where quality was not a priority and individual winemakers were not incentivized to excel. Switching to the competitive international markets after the 2006 break with President Putin’s Russia, Georgian winemakers are now starting to focus on quality. With nine thousand years of tradition behind it, Georgian wine is ready for a comeback.

  Romania: Proud of its Roman wine-producing past, Romania is now the sixth largest wine producer in the European Union. If not yet famous for its quality wines, it is already a best-seller in America’s Sam’s Club, with a wide selection of red and white wines at less than $7.00 per bottle.

  Slovenia: Emerging from decades of communist atrophy followed by the horrors of the late twentieth century Bosnian wars, Slovenia is now home to some of the most exciting wines in Central Europe. Following the deadening effect of state-owned co-operatives, much of Slovenia’s wine production has returned to small, family-owned operations where individualism and experimentation have taken center stage. Long recognized for its oak trees, which make some of the world’s finest wine barrels, Slovenia is increasingly being recognized for its wines.

  Croatia: I hitchhiked down the Dalmatian Coast through Croatia during the 1960s when it was still part of communist Yugoslavia and fell in love with its wines. On the dramatic and beautiful Adriatic coast, facing Italy, Croatia has been producing wines since even before the Romans arrived. I was a young man in the ‘60s, but still vividly recall the heady taste of freshly-grilled goat meat washed down with generous glasses of the local Crljenak Kaštelanski (Zinfandel), sitting on a moonlit beach beside the wine-dark sea. Croatian émigrés in the twentieth century were very influential in the development of the Californian, Australian, and New Zealand wine industries, and now, following the end of the Bosnian conflict, they are returning home and promise to make Croatian wine a major player once again on the world stage.

  Chapter

  5

  THE NEW WORLD

  “Nothing makes the future look so rosy as to contemplate it through a glass of Gevrey Chambertin.” ― Napoleon Bonaparte

  The Vitis vinifera vine finally expanded beyond the bounds of Europe in 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Two peoples are primarily responsible for the spread of wine production in the New World: the Spanish, who needed an abundant supply of wine to celebrate the Catholic Mass in all the lands they conquered, and the English, who needed wine to assuage the thirst of their sailors and soldiers in the Empire on which the sun never set.

  The Spanish took vines, probably from the locality of Cadiz from which they set sail across the Atlantic, and which themselves were the vines first planted by the Phoenicians in 1100 BC. They were known as “Mission Vines,” and planted all over the New World in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The first vineyards were planted on Hispaniola, and later in Mexico (1549) and Peru (possibly as early as 1540).

  Spanish colonization of the Americas occurred primarily on the West Coast, first in South America moving south from Peru to Chile, and eventually north from Mexico into what is today California, where each new Mission along the Pacific Coast planted its own vineyard. In all cases, the motivation was to supply wine for the Eucharist during the celebration of the Catholic Mass. At the same time, there was a continuing but often ignored prohibition from the Spanish authorities, who wanted to export Spanish wine and did not want the colonies to be self-sufficient. The problems were that wine from Spain had usually oxidized by the time it had crossed the ocean, it was expensive, and the locally produced wine simply tasted better.

  While the Spanish controlled the west coast of both North and South America, the English and French struggled to control the East and Center of North America. Part of the English desire for a colony in North America was to have an independent source of wine so they would not be dependent on other European suppliers. Unfortunately, neither the French nor the English realized that because of the vine disease Phylloxera, vines would not grow, either on the English controlled East Coast or in the French colonies of Louisiana and New France.

  Moving in the other direction, however, both the English and the Dutch realized that the Cape Colony of South Africa was the perfect base to grow wine and resupply their navies sailing to their Empires in the Far East. Very soon, by 1685, the South African wines of Constantia were actually being shipped back to Europe for consumption by Frederick the Great in Prussia and Catherine the Great in Russia.

  From South Africa, the English started to transplant South African vines to the new colonies in Australia as early as 1788, and the exercise was so successful that by 1822, Australia, referred to as England’s vineyard, was exporting its wines to Europe, and by the 1880s was winning international prizes.

  New World vs Old World Wines

  Most of the vineyards in the New World are in hotter climates than their European homeland; consequently, with more dependable sunshine, the grapes are riper, resulting in wines which have a higher alcohol level and which are more full-bodied and fruitier. It has been argued, not without a certain level of Eurocentric snobbery as well as a certain level of truth, that New World wines reflect their culture—being more “loud” and “brash” than their more subtle and discreet European counterparts. In some ways, this has been exacerbated by Robert Parker, the American wine critic who has encouraged more full-bodied and fruit-forward wines in the New World.

  Fruit Bombs: As discussed elsewhere, I have mixed feelings concerning Robert Parker. Initially, many Californian winemakers were striving to reproduce French wines and to recreate the same tastes. It was Parker who told them to be true to their terroir and to make wines which reflected the local conditions. “If you want to make French wines,” he said, “go to France.” This is most clearly shown in the difference between Chardonnay wines from Burgundy and California. The Californian Chardonnays are much more oaky, alcoholic, fruitier, and full-bodied. The Burgundies are far more subtle and lighter-bodied, exhibiting more herb, earth, mineral, and floral components. Parker is correct in encouraging the Californians to be themselves and not slavishly copy the French; it is just that his opinion is so influential that the pendulum has now swung the other way, and all Chardonnays are becoming the “hedonistic fruit bombs” that Parker so enjoys. The average alcohol content for European reds is about 12.5 percent while in the New World, 14 percent is more common.

  Many Europeans argue that New World fruit-bombs overwhelm food, and that the lack of acidity and tannins fails to cleanse the palette while eating. However, while Europeans have always associated wine with food, a 2011 survey by Wine Opinions (www.wineopinions.com), found that most of the wine consumed by Americans is not drunk as part of a meal but rather alone as a cocktail, before or after a meal. So the harmonious balance of acid, tannins, and fruit, which pairs so well with
food, is less important when the wines are to be enjoyed by themselves and the soft-rounded pleasures of the fruit can stand alone.

  Annual variations and vintages: One of the big differences between annual vintages in Europe is rainfall. Lack of rain or too much rain, or rain falling at the wrong time, can destroy a whole year’s crop. This is why the quality of the wine from major European regions varies from year to year, and why the vintage of a European wine is of such importance. This is much less of a problem in the New World, where seasons are much more predictable and consistent. Much of Europe’s wine country is in the Mediterranean climate zone, with unpredictable rainfall and climate fluctuations. Much of California, however, like Australia and Chile, is desert. As early as 1962, Professor Albert J. Winkler at UC Berkeley had analyzed the temperature and climate of California’s grape-producing regions, and divided them into what are still referred to as the five Winkler Zones. Within those five zones, the annual rainfall and temperatures are fairly consistent, and thus predictable, by the winegrower. Rain does not usually fall during the growing season, and so water is provided, through irrigation, by the farmers. This means that the farmer has much more control over the growth and development of the vine, and it also means that his wines can be consistent from year to year. The only potential downside to this is drought. As this book is being written, California is introducing drastic laws to restrict car washing and lawn watering in order to adjust to the fourth year of severe drought; but so far, in late 2017, Californian winegrowers have not yet been affected.

  Varietals: With over two thousand years of experimentation and experience, Europeans had learned which grape varietals grew best in which region, and thus the concept of terroir and regional styles developed, most especially in France. Consumers were aware of the difference between Burgundy and Bordeaux, for example, or Champagne and Chablis. New World winegrowers, however, had to learn by trial and error, and so would plant a wide variety of different vines in the same geographic area. There was no concept of terroir, and the difference between a Napa and Sonoma red wine was a meaningless concept. Nobody had heard of either place; there was no tradition or reputation behind either name. Winegrowers, therefore, referred back to the French classics, and would label their red wines “Burgundy” and their white wines “Chablis,” for example. Initially, most New World wines were simply imitations of Old World wines, and so in addition to Californian Burgundy and Chablis, there was Australian Sherry and South African Port.