I had a most unusual wine day yesterday.
Two personal incidents, and two philosophical throbs, added up to a virtual oeno-epiphany.
Keep in mind that on some days you wake up to find that it’s “International Chardonnay Day”—big yawn here—a very good time to go back to sleep. You pray you’re not being cast in a new version of “Groundhog Day.”
Other days dawn with the news about “Virginia Varietal Day”—which I always accept placidly, still in bed, enjoying an Ethiopian coffee or a Japanese green tea, and wanting nothing else.
But this kind of “Wine Day” was different; for me, June 1, 2015, was, and will always be, the “First Annual Cosmic Wine-Changing Day of the New Wine Order.”
I knew something was up in the Mischief Workshop of the gods last week, when I received a request to lunch on Monday with CP Lin, a great New Zealand treasure and a genius winemaker. I’d met him a few years back, in the wilds of New Zealand’s eastern South Island, where I tasted remarkably pure and elegant wines that he made. He was going to be in New York briefly and wanted to talk. I was surprised, honored, and writing the lunch in my datebook in a matter of seconds.
But there were rumblings in the bush even before I got to CP’s lunch. That Monday morning, my computer presented me with a story that had run in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, written by Bruce Schoenfeld, entitled “The Wrath of Grapes.” There have been numerous accounts lately of changing tastes in wine in America—the move to make it something you drink, not something you worship, the increasing predilection for lighter, more graceful, less alcholic-stuffed, less oaky wines—but Bruce’s piece was front and center in the Paper of Record, in the part of the NY Times (its Sunday Magazine) that gets a wide readership. The part that generates “trends.” Furthermore, he was pretty tough on Wine God Robert Parker, who stands for everything the new movement (now named “In Pursuit of Balance”) does not. Lastly, Schoenfeld reported that one of the cult heroes of California wine in the 1990s, Doug Shafer, producer of monumentally outsized Napa Valley reds…“can’t get the time of day anymore from hip somms.” Brother, can you spare a Cab…
I know Doug, and find him a very nice man…and I’m sure he’ll survive. Therefore, I was pretty darned happy Monday morning when I discovered the world is finally starting to focus on the kind of wine that I think will save wine in America (How much 15.5% Chardonnay can you drink? How much sandpaper tannin can you tolerate on your throat?)
And then there was CP.
He had asked about high-end sushi for lunch, but I know he can get that in Christchurch, New Zealand, or at least Auckland. I asked if he’d ever been to a New York deli, and he said that not only had he not…but it was on his list! Done. By 12:30 we were lunching at Sarge’s, on Third Avenue, one of my NY deli secrets…and though we had Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray Soda to begin the meal, we soon moved into red wines made by CP.
The “wow” of it all was only partially in the wines, which were flat-out terrific. More wow points were racked up by CP’s philosophy, which was another endorsement…from one of my favorite New World winemakers…of the fabulous turn-around reported in the Sunday Times Magazine. But I’m lookin’ for action here…and when I heard what the very famous CP Lin is actively up to, that’s when I really spilled my mustard.
He informed me that June 1 was an important day for his company, because it’s the day that his first New Zealand Pinot Noir under the Erewhon label is being launched in New York (it costs around $35 retail). As you may know, New Zealand has become a hotspot for Pinot Noir, with endless discussions world-wide of the best NZ Pinot-growing regions: Martinborough? Marlborough? Central Otago? Waipara?
As I looked at the new label, I could see no clear indication of grape sourcing, other than “New Zealand.”
So, I asked, which New Zealand region yielded the grapes? “It doesn’t matter,” CP said. Whaaat? I have never heard a winemaker give that answer to this question. It’s usually the opposite: “We have a little vineyard in the Listrac appellation that supplies 80% of the grapes for this wine, but only the vines that are closer to the river and have a west exposure, only the ones where the farmers’ dog likes to poop on the topsoil, until the farmer got a new dog who likes to poop less so they’re changing the dog’s diet”…and on…and on…and on…unto death.
The death of the wine industry too, believes CP.
“We call the wine “Erewhon,” CP tells me…“because it’s an anagram for NOWHERE. We believe that this wine-geeky geographical obsession has gotten completely out of control. It is ruining wine; it turns off so many more people than it turns on.” And CP began to run off various analogues from other areas of aesthetic activity that made crystal-clear sense.
For example:
“If you love Wagner’s operas, do you have to know German? Do you have to go to Bayreuth and sit for 17 hours in those bloody hard seats to take in the whole Ring? Can’t you just climb up on your bed with headphones, no libretto, and listen to a passage for 20 minutes?”
CP is quick to point out: “Of course, if you want to go geek-on-geek with me, I can be geekier than anyone. I can tell you about every little piece of dirt that went into this wine. I am not an anti-terroirist! But terroirism has its place…a very limited place. It’s best to keep it out of commercial discourse. We’re getting all the wrong messages to the consumer. We’re making him or her feel he or she has to be a member of some esoteric society to get ‘in.’ It’s not true! In my new company, we’re trying to encourage the identification of brands, brands you’ve loved, brands you can trust. Leave the micro-geographic details for geeks at wine conferences. And do these details matter that much at all? We’re trained to ask geographic/geologic details only about certain kinds of wines. Why? Does anyone ever talk about the exact blend of lots in Chateau Margaux? No. Does anyone ever talk about the exact blend of lots in Krug Grande Cuvée? No. The producers have been very wise in training us out of those discussions. I see NO talk in general about grape-sourcing in wines that cost $300…but plenty of geeky-nerdy talk about wine bottles that cost $30. I say…we need MORE thinking of the Chateau Margaux/Krug type in wine! Geek it down everywhere!!!”
The biggest news next: in order to turn this good idea for Erewhon from a New Zealand quirk into an international movement, CP has joined forces with a company in San Francisco, Third Leaf Imports, that is after exactly the same principle. Yes, they import Erewhon…but they’re also importing and marketing wines from all over the world that intend to impress the consumer principally with the brand name!
Along with CP, I tasted two wines from another Third Leaf producer, a producer given the brand name Bonnet Rouge. CP is not involved in the making of ALL Third Leaf wines, but he is involved in blending wines to produce Bonnet Rouge. And what are they? Once again, you’d never know from the front label…though in this case you’d certainly assume they’re French.
They are, in fact, two different blends of Gamay Noir made in the Beaujolais region of France. They are WAY more serious than most Beaujolais: darker, deeper, more structured. Third Leaf has chosen to call one of them Gamay Noir, and the other Cuvée Marianne. By French law, the words “Beaujolais-Villages” have to appear on the back label…but Third Leaf has found a loophole in the law…and future vintages will not even say “Beaujolais-Villages” on the BACK label! Once again, Third Leaf wants you to think about one thing only: Bonnet Rouge! “I love my Bonnet Rouge!”
Third Leaf has similarly-conceived products coming in from Italy, Oregon, the Finger Lakes in New York, even sake from Japan.
I remember when one of the things to look for on a label, if you wanted good wine, was specificity; “a wine labeled ‘Bordeaux,’” the experts used to say, “was not as good as one labeled ‘Medoc.’ And THAT is not as good as one labeled ’St. Julien.’”
I thought of this 1970s thinking when CP told me yesterday: “we’re trying to get the LARGEST geographic area possible on the label!”
What a reversal!!! O brave new world!
NOTE: In case you’re wondering about the 2013 Erewhon Pinot Noir, New Zealand that I tasted yesterday, here are my notes. At the moment, your highest odds of finding it are in restaurants…
2013 Erewhon Pinot Noir
New Zealand
CP sources these grapes from two of the sexiest New Zealand Pinot-growing areas, Central Otago, and Waipara—though he really doesn’t want to tell you! Pretty ruby-garnet in the glass, moderately light. Iron-and-tootsie-roll kind of New World Pinot Noir nose; with air, the non-fruit hints become more earthy and Burgundian. Medium body, but this is a wine desperate to be even lighter than it is. It hits the palate with ripe fruit and a little bite, but then—owing largely to tangy, almost cranberry-like acid—it hits the finish line with a refreshing, non-threatening elegance. Delicious wine for food.
