View from the 33rd Floor: A Wine I'd Wear as Perfume
Posted 04/17/2008 at 10:43 PM by Cathy
With a view of Boston's skyline from the 33rd floor above State Street behind him, winemaker Pascal Jolivet was a man on display. And so were his wines.
Jolivet, along with a dozen other producers, poured from their own bottles last night for the crowd at the Frederick Wildman & Sons' Grand Tour 2008 tasting. These weren't just any producers, and these were definitely not just any wines: it was a room full of stellar winemakers and equally stellar wines, and the headiness of it all made my head spin just a bit.
Jolivet, for example, poured a sample of his 2007 Sancerre and told me confidently that the wine should be decanted before drinking, and that it could age for at least 10 years. My ears perked up at this. Normally people talk about aging reds, not whites, since longevity tends to come from tannins, which come from the skin contact red wines experience during fermentation. White wines don't have much tannins since they haven't had much (if any) contact with the skin. If white wines are to age, they've got to rely on something else than tannins to do it.
For Jolivet and his Sancerre, that something else was acidity. And lots of it. But the fruit and the freshness of the wine were the most dominant characteristics of this wine for me, not the acidity, meaning it was a very balanced, high quality wine. Would it age for 10 years? I'd wager a guess it would.
As Jolivet took me through tastes of the rest of the wines at his table, I began to appreciate the value of tasting in a series. Imagine tasting eight wines one after the other that were made from the same grape harvested from the same vineyards, in this case Sauvignon Blancs from a single producer in the Loire Valley. The differences between Jolivet's wines were distinctive yet subtle; with each taste I felt I was an taking incremental step in terms of distance but a huge leap in terms of imagination and temperament, all at the same time.
What made this tasting unusual, compared to other tastings I've attended recently, was the opportunity for instruction. Or, more correctly, for being instructed. The people pouring the wines, despite repeating the same routine hour after hour and in some cases day after day, were exceptionally eager to talk with guests about the wines and explain each bottle's provenance and personality.
Take the Hugel & Fils table. They poured eight wines and, if you tasted in sequence, you experienced an Alsatian table wine (the 2006 Gentil) made in the traditional manner; then a village-level Riesling (the 2006 Riesling); then a Grand Cru, or Jubilee Riesling (the 2004 Riesling "Jubilee"). The quality level rose with each taste. The crescendo of intensity built. Best of all, your palate was exposed right then and there to different levels of viticultural expertise.
But then there were the wines that I very much did not want any instruction about. These were the wines that were so delicious I simply didn't want to talk about them. I didn't want to learn about them. I just wanted to enjoy them. They were the wines that, when I smelled them or tasted them, the noise around me hushed.
When I smelled the 2007 Arboleda Sauvignon Blanc from Chile, for example, my only thought was, "I would wear this as perfume." And then I stopped thinking about it, and just enjoyed. Much later I realized I hadn't ever said that about any wine. Much later, I still remember that bouquet and I still don't want to talk about it except to say my thanks to Arboleda's winemaker for giving wine drinkers like me such a gift.
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