Zut A'Loire!

When we were wee-uns first learning about wine around the turn of the millennium, we asked the owner of our favorite wine shop in Richmond, VA, to recommend a single-volume introduction — just the essentials. Rather than pointing us toward Kevin Zraly's Windows on the World or the Oxford Companion, she pressed upon us a pocket-sized, binge-in-one-sitting manifesto called The Wine Avenger by importer Willie Gluckstern. "Read this," she said. I think it cost all of $8.

Keep in mind: this was circa 1999, at the crest of the Parkerized international fruitbomb wave. To say that Gluckstern was out of step with prevailing tastes at the time is an understatement worthy of Wes Anderson. As the righteous Wine Avenger, our hero railed against over-ripe, over-oaked, high alcohol wines, Napa Chards in particular. Five years before Sideways, he dismissed Merlot and its fans with a drop-dead three-word kiss-off: "Get a life." Then he set about making a case for leaner, higher acid, terroir-driven wines that reads like a phantom transmission from 15 years in the future.

He laid out the concept of grower champagne without ever using the term "grower champagne" because it hadn't been coined yet. He anointed Riesling as the world's greatest white wine a decade and a half before Stuart Martin Pigott reached the same conclusion. And, perhaps most surprising of all, he went all weak-kneed for "unknown, unloved, [and] unbeatable with food" Cabernet Franc from the Loire Valley. We'd cut our teeth on enough just OK-ish Virginia Cab Franc to be skeptical, but curious. We picked up a bottle of Charles Joguet Chinon and never looked back.

Yes, the Loire really looks like that.

It sounds ass-backwards, but thanks to Willie Gluckstern, before Burgundy or Bordeaux or the Rhône or Alsace, our introduction to French wine was the Loire: "unloved" Cab Franc from Chinon and Bourgeuil, versatile Chenin Blanc from Vouvray and Savenierres, sleek, chiseled Sauvignon Blanc from Sancerre and Pouilly Fumé, and briny sur lie Muscadet which back then was widely available for single-digit prices. The wines were vibrant, supple, distinctive, and food friendly, and didn't carry the heavy philosophical freight (or the price tags) of France's more renowned regions — and even a novice could taste the difference between a light, breezy Saumur Cab Franc and a richer, more floral Bourgeuil. It sounds ass-backwards, but the Loire was actually a great place to start. Gluckstern knew it, and before him, Kermit Lynch. Thankfully, our shop owner knew it, and now so did we.

It's no big secret these days. Now the Loire is a pet stomping ground for many younger sommeliers and wine writers, especially those who evangelize for the biodynamic and natural wine movements, both of which have deep roots in the Valley. But the region is still close to our hearts, too — and coming out of our winter focus on natural wine, it just seems right to ease into the Loire, whose wines have always made us think spring thoughts.

Our menu will start changing over this week. We're looking forward to spending the next few months in the Loire Valley!

To SO2 or Not to SO2, That is the Question

What exactly makes a natural wine "natural"?

It’s a good question with no definitive answer. There are no set criteria for natural wines, nor is there a sanctioning body that puts its seal of approval on every funky, unfined, unfiltered bottle.

There is something approaching a consensus, though, as to best practices — a sort of unspoken code — that most natural winemakers follow:

• the fewer manipulations or additions, the better
• grapes should come from organic or biodynamic vineyards
• fermentations should come from indigenous or ambient yeasts rather than commercial strains
• sulfur dioxide additions should be minimized or eliminated

This last point is a bit contentious, and marks a flashpoint for “more natural than thou” arguments to begin. Making quality wine without sulfur dioxide's antioxidant properties is no easy feat. It keeps grapes from spoiling between the vineyard and the press. It keeps must from turning to hydrogen peroxide during fermentation. It keeps bacteria from taking over that give off aromas reminiscent of a barnyard on a hot day. A small shot at bottling gives it a fighting chance of making it from the winery to you in decent shape. It's not a newfangled invention like reverse osmosis: winemakers have been using sulfur candles to sterilize wine vessels for at least a couple millennia. Nor is it even inorganic: trace amounts of SO2 are a natural byproduct of fermentation. (That’s why there's no such thing as a 100% sulfite-free wine.)

So why in the world would you want to get rid of it?

Besides the fact that in high concentrations — much, much higher than what occurs in the winemaking process — it can be toxic, there is a sense among naturalistas that perhaps SO2 does its job too well. It could inhibit native yeasts from doing their idiosyncratic thing, forcing the winemaker to use a cultivated strain to kick off fermentation. It might kill off bacteria that, in limited amounts, could add interest or complexity (or, depending on your palate, make it taste like the aforementioned barnyard). For some, the reward of a characterful, authentic, one-of-a-kind wine outstrips the risk of a spoiled vintage.

This vibrant grenache/cinsault blend from the Sierra Foothills only sees a tiny dose of SO2 at bottling.

In truth, it’s not a total crapshoot. Hand harvesting and whole-cluster fermentations can reduce the need for SO2 when grapes enter the winery. Extended lees contact offers a measure of antioxidant protection during fermentation. Harmful bacteria have a harder time thriving in stainless steel or concrete vessels than in old oak. Shipping in temp-controlled containers — who doesn't do this in this day and age? — minimizes the risk of spoilage in transit.

There's a tendency to think of natural winemaking as hands-off winemaking, but the opposite is actually true. It takes a lot of hard work and a certain amount of gamesmanship. It's a high-wire act, and working without sulfur is working without a net. But when the winemaker pulls it off, the results can be dazzling.

Interested in learning more about natural wines? Get your tickets for Monday Night RAW, a tasting and talk led by Justin Scappaticci from Philly-based importer/distributor Artisan's Cellar on February 20. They're going fast!

ANALOG WINE IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Martilde's juicy, lively, natural Croatina (aka Bonarda) from Lombardy, currently one of Jamie's favorites.

For our winter focus — which officially got underway in earnest last week to give everyone time to recover from the holidays — we’re changing things up a bit. Instead of spotlighting a region (like Oregon) or a style (like rosé), we’re taking a closer look at an ideology: the natural wine movement. If you haven’t noticed, natural wines are kind of having a moment right now —  but they’ve been around, well, since some blessed soul discovered what happens when you let grape juice sit around too long.

The current trend, however, is rooted in a reformation that took place in the past 10-15 years that saw a number of prominent critics, winemakers and sommeliers call bullshit on the Hedonistic Fruitbomb style that had come to dominate first the New World and, increasingly, the Old. These were wines that, from the vineyard to the bottling line, had gone through an endless sequence of manipulations — microoxygenation, reverse osmosis, multiple filtrations, massive doses of oak, even, in some more heinous cases, the addition of color extracts like Mega Purple — to arrive at what is known as The International Style: heavy, decadent, jammy, often unbalanced wines aimed squarely at the pleasure centers. In the process, they've also been systematically denuded of a sense of place.

Natural winemakers reject all that. If great wine is made in the vineyard — a line you hear maybe a little too often when natural wine comes up — then his or her job is simply to stay out of the way and let the grapes tell their story. That means no interventionist processes, no corrections for color or acidity, an aversion toward cultivated yeasts and new oak, a laissez-faire attitude toward ambient bacteria like brettanomyces, and some serious philosophical wrestling with whether to use sulfur dioxide or not. (Some do, many don’t.)

Gnarly AF! These 250-year old Pais vines in Chile's Bìo-Bìo Valley still pump out grapes that go into Cacique Maravilla's natural Pipeño — look for it back on the list soon!

Natural wines are risky as hell. They don’t always taste the way we’ve been conditioned to expect wines to taste. They can be funky and tart and thin. Sometimes they’re best decanted directly down the drain. They're inconsistent by design. But when everything aligns, they can be revelatory — a Russian novel’s worth of detail into the intimacies of terroir and vintage in the glass. We’re looking forward to bringing back a number of our favorite natural producers over the next few months and sharing new ones with you. Keep an open mind and an open palate — you’re bound to be surprised.

Fire & Water: A Tale of Two Soils & Willamette Pinot

The view from Mo Ayoub's deck/tasting room. Dundee Hills in all its splendor.

You don’t have to hang around in Portland too long before you get the sense that California’s loss has been Oregon’s immeasurable gain. It’s not just a case of Bay-area rent refugees transforming Portland into Portlandia, either — in the Willamette Valley, just south of the city, you hear a fairly common story among winery owners, grape farmers and winemakers: priced out of Napa or Sonoma, or philosophically out of step with the bombastic style that so often dominates there, they headed north and found a haven on the 45th parallel, which, not coincidentally, the Willamette Valley shares with Burgundy.

A yellowjacket getting all up in the Pinot at Patricia Green Cellars.

The first Willamette Pinot Noir vines were planted in the Dundee Hills in 1965 by UC Davis grad and Napa expat David Lett, who went on to found Eyrie Vineyards. He had a hunch that the region’s cool climate, wet winters and dry summers — as well as the series of wind gaps that draw cool Pacific breezes through the Coast Range into the valley — were good omens for Pinot. They were, as were the soils, deposits from the Missoula Floods of the last ice age: primarily red volcanic (Jory) and sandy marine sediment (WillaKenzie). Pinot grown in the former tends to be rounder, plusher and more expressive of bright red fruits, while the latter produces wines that are leaner, more structured and more centered on dark cherry aromas.

As anyone who’s seen Sideways knows, Pinot doesn't flourish just anywhere. It ripens early. It’s prone to disease. It picks up nuances of terroir like no other red grape. It takes sure, deft know-how in the vineyard and the cellar to tease out its full potential. Willamette growers know that nature’s dealt them an enviable hand. They don’t have much else under vine as far as reds go — some Gamay (which makes sense) and some excellent cool-climate Syrah (we’re currently pouring Adelsheim’s, which you should try). Why mess with a good — often great — thing?

Right now we’re pouring a few estate Pinots blended from Jory and WillaKenzie parcels:

• Yamhill Valley Vineyards Estate Pinot Noir ($11/$44), Yamhill-Carlton AVA. 
• Trisaetum Willamette Valley Pinot Noir ($11/$44), Ribbon Ridge AVA.
• Mo Ayoub Memoirs Pinot Noir, Dundee Hills/McMinnville (via Coravin™). We had a pretty memorable meeting with Mo on his deck at the end of a long day of tasting (for us) and harvesting (for Mo). Be sure to ask about it!

Onward to Oregon

And like that, Summer of Rosé 2016 is done. (We may still have a handful of “Never Mind the Bollocks” tees in the basement if you failed to pick one up.)

"We hereby claim this valley in the name of the Allegheny Wine Mixer."

Pinot Noir on the vine at Four Graces

So what’s up for Fall? If you follow us on social media, you probably know that the staff spent the week after Labor Day (our annual closing week) on the West Coast, checking out the Portland scene by night, tasting in the Willamette Valley by day — hard prep for our Fall Focus, Oregon.

You might think this will simply boil down to a tale of two Pinots, Noir and Gris, and no one would blame you if you did. The former, especially, is the grape to which Oregon has hitched its star, and for good reason: the cool, wet Willamette Valley offers optimal growing conditions for this notoriously difficult grape, producing wines with an elegance and structure that only Burgundy can surpass. (The local relationship with Pinot Gris is far more ambivalent, but more on that in a future post.)

But to dismiss Oregon as a two-trick pony overlooks not only some exciting developments in the warmer climes of the Rogue and Columbia River Valleys, but more diversity in Willamette than it typically gets credit for. We tasted plenty of Willamette Rieslings, Syrahs, Muscats, Chardonnays, Viogniers and other less common varietals throughout our trip. Many were real revelations.

Some of these wines will start hitting our list in the coming week, and they’ll change often throughout the fall. We’re looking forward to sharing them with you and telling their story.

Housekeeping: Wine + Swine, Father's Day and wrapping up Sicily

If you've yet to grab your tickets for WINE + SWINE, the pig roast we're throwing with Butcher on Butler to kick off our second annual Summer of Rosé, you might want to get on that. It's going down at Bayardstown Social Club (3008 Penn Avenue in the Strip) one week from tonight  — Tuesday June 21 —  and it promises to be a blast. Tickets are $45 and include:

• 2 glasses of rosé (cash bar for additional glasses)
• pork + two sides from Butcher on Butler
• ice cream from Millie's Homemade
• tunes from J. Malls
• unlimited stump, cornhole and all the other questionably named tomfoolery you can normally get up to at Bayardstown
• tax and gratuity 

We may have a handful of tickets available for walk-up sales the night of, but we highly recommend you pre-purchase your tickets for this event — which you can do at www.showclix.com/event/AWM-wine-swine.

Come join us at Bayardstown on June 21 and help us, as they used to say in the early days of MTV, paint the mutha pink!

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WINE + SWINE tickets would make a great Father's Day gift, but on Father's Day itself, why not bring him down to AWM? Upper Lawrenceville will be rocking the 10th 3rd block party, which means we open at noon, and we'll be pouring off all the wines from our spring focus on Sicily ... and there may even be an impromptu showing of a famous flick about a certain Sicilian-American patriarch. Cannoli may also be involved.

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As much fun as Summer of Rosé is, we're a little sad to say goodbye to Sicily, whose wines continue to surprise and delight us. There's still plenty on the list at the moment, including Tenuta della Terre Nerra's 2010 Etna Rosso "Feudo di Mezzo" — a single contrada (sort of the Etna equivalent of a grand cru) bottling that we're pouring via Coravin for just $15/glass. (Trust us, that's a bargain.) We've noticed a tendency with higher-end Nerello-based reds from Etna to adhere either to a Barolo or a Burgundy template, and Feudo di Mezzo definitely favors the former with tightly focused aromas of strawberries, balsamic, rosehips, nutmeg and loamy earth, fine-grained tannins and exquisite balance. It's the sort of wine that makes us sad we can't serve it to you alongside a dry-aged porterhouse, but que sera sera. DJ's beef jerky will do in a pinch.

Again, buying dad a glass on Father's Day would show him he raised himself one classy kid.

Scaling the Heights of Etna

Europe’s largest volcano and one of the world’s most active, it dominates Sicily both physically — on clear days, it’s visible more than 200 miles away in Erice — and psychologically, too: a constant, sullen threat that could, on any given day, wipe out half the island and a chunk of nearby Calabria. It’s a mythic, almost sentient presence: home of the Cyclops Polyphemus in The Odyssey, the mountain itself is a sort of one-eyed giant that’s been known to hurl a boulder or two into the sea on occasion.

Mt. Etna is an extraordinary, singular place, and it yields extraordinary, singular wines. Sandy, mineral-rich volcanic soils, obviously, play an enormous role, as does altitude — Etna boasts some of the highest vineyards in the world. Taken together, these two factors allow for yet another extraordinary circumstance: the existence of very old, pre-phylloxera vines on its upper slopes. (The phylloxera louse can’t survive in sandy volcanic soils.)

Pre-phylloxera Nerello Mascalese vines at Firriato.

Contrada on Etna's northeastern face — a cross-section of millenia's worth of volcanic activity.

But it’s Etna’s thriving existence as an active volcano that make it utterly unique. Other notable volcanic growing regions like Santorini or Aglianico del Vulture are perched on the remains of extinct volcanos, but Etna is in an almost perpetual state of eruption, which means the growing environment is in a constant state of flux, if not outright peril. Ultrafine pumice and ash rain down over the slopes almost daily. Steam vents can cause unexpected cloud cover or temperature spikes. Most drastic of all, lava flows, known locally as contrade, can incinerate acres of vineyard at a time, leaving behind layers of incredibly rich, fertile soil. During our trip, a winemaker from Vittoria told us that when he drinks Etna wines, he tastes lava. He meant this as high praise, and he was not wrong.

Etna’s principal red grape is Nerello Mascalese, a relative of both Sangiovese and Gaglioppo. It is incredibly sensitive to site and is rarely found outside of eastern Sicily. Comprising at least 80% of Etna Rosso blends, Nerello is remarkably pretty in the glass: brilliant ruby when young, acquiring some orange tints with age. It’s often compared to Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo, but its sour red cherry, hibiscus and tobacco profile is uniquely its own. (Most Etna Rosso also sees a splash of another native Nerello, Nerello Cappuccio, that adds color and body to the blend.)

Carricante is the white cultivar of note in Etna Bianco blends. Grown at extreme altitudes — between 3100 and 3500 ft. above sea level — on Etna’s northern and eastern slopes, it produces high acid, medium bodied wines with distinct minerality that, for point of reference, are often compared to dry Riesling, a comparison that doesn’t fully do the grape justice. Not nearly as aromatic as Riesling, Carricante can also have undertones of ginger, chamomile and sweet marjoram that are quite unlike any other white grape that comes to mind.

As long as we’re being so profligate with words like ‘extraordinary’ and ‘unique,’ we might as well mention something else truly extraordinary and unique about Etna: fine wine production here is a very recent development, really only, umm, erupting within the last 10-15 years. But in that time, the Etna DOC (getting the G tacked on is an inevitability, one would think) has leapfrogged to the top echelons of prestige Italian wine regions, in the process swinging an overdue spotlight on other great Sicilian appellations, like Cerasuola di Vittoria and Noto. It’s our privilege to be among the first generation of wine drinkers to witness the ascent.

Mt. Etna, seen from 30,000'. Squint really hard and maybe you'll see a Cyclops! 

Currently we’re pouring Valenti’s Enrico IV 2013 Etna Bianco (100% Carricante) as well as their 100% varietal Nerello Mascalese Norma 2011 Etna Rosso. Via Coravin, we’re also pouring Pistus’ I Custodi 2013 Etna Rosso, which contains some Nerello Cappuccio. These two make a fine comparison; the differences are pronounced!

On Etna

The view that greeted us as we arrived at Firriato Cavanera Etnea Resort this evening:

Etna Sunset

 The last stop on our trip, and the most anticipated, Etna requires a certain amount of patience and nerve to get to. If we've learned anything over the past week, it's that there's a lot more to Sicily than Mt. Etna — but tonight it's pretty hard not to be excited that we're sleeping ON A VOLCANO.