Current Wine and Food Trends
The fourth annual St Michaels Food and Wine Festival, held in this picturesque Maryland Eastern Shore village April 27-30, was an opportunity to taste numerous wines, pair them with fine food, and catch up on the latest in the wine and food industries. The weather was perfect, the pourings generous, and we enjoyed food demonstrations from outstanding chefs such as Mark Salter of The Inn at Perry Cabin, who prepared yellow gaspacho soup, and his signature spring rolls with crabmeat for an appreciative audience.
Dinner Friday evening was a multicourse, carefully prepared meal at The Inn at Perry Cabin. Starters were accompanied with refreshing Bellefon Brut and Rose nonvintage champagnes from France. A sponsor of the weekend, Champagne Bellefon deserves to be better known. It is tasty, refreshing, and still moderately priced. The courses that followed were the responsibility of different chefs. Mark Salter’s excellent warm lobster tart was paired with a HdV Chardonnay Carneros 2003, a good Chardonnay, mouthfilling and flavorful, the product of Aubert de Villaine of the Domaine de la Romanee Conti in Burgundy. As I have noticed in other regions, the finest French producers take enormous pride in their name and their products. That is surely true of Aubert de Villaine. This new (to me) Chardonnay was a treat.
Other wine and food pairings followed, thoughtful selections and successful ones for the most part. A superb pan seared mallard duck breast by Chef Jean-Louis Lacroix of The Rittenhouse in Philadelphia was paired with a Domaine Marc Kreydenweiss Kritt Gewurztraminer 2003. The vintage is not a successful one for Alsatian white wines, as the hot temperatures lowered acidities, producing atypical wines, unfocussed. This Gewurztraminer had none of the spice characteristic of the wine. On the other hand, a Burgess Merlot Napa Valley 2003, and a Silverado Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2002, were fine wines in the making, both a bit young. The Merlot had peppery notes that went nicely with the lamb crusted with chestnuts, and the Cabernet Sauvignon, which accompanied a fine assortment of young Wisconsin cheeses, was very flavorful, but so young that it would have benefitted from decanting. One missed well aged cheeses and a mature Bordeaux to match.
The highpoint for me was a Royal Tokaji 2000 Ot Puttonyos dessert wine, served with an appropriately chilled and bland Granita dessert, by Mathew Ratliff of The Inn at Perry Cabin. Having lived in Hungary during the communist years when this world famous sweet wine was badly made, it was a great pleasure to taste, even as a young wine, this superior Tokaj. It was a memorable wine full of promise. Kudos to those who selected it, and paired it so well with a fine, contrasting dessert.
This dinner started me thinking about wine and food pairings generally. All of these wines were fairly young, and some were years away from their peak. When I served as Wine Consultant for a gourmet dinner recently, I was made aware of the problem. Wines come from distributors, who often have only the most recent vintages for sale. The problem for a wine consultant, therefore, is to pair fine foods with wines which may not be quite ready. Surely there must be a potential market for a gourmet dinner with wines that have fully matured. It would be a taste revelation for many who are beginning to be interested in wines, to see just how outstanding a dinner with fine vintage wines can be. Perhaps in the future, the St. Michaels Food and Wine Festival might offer such a dinner?
Seminars during the next two days supplemented the wine tastings. I was intrigued by Laurie Forster, “The Wine Coach,” (www.thewinecoach.com), who spoke of wine and food reactions. This is a needed and helpful start for those who want to match foods and wines to the best effect. People want to know something of the interaction of spicy foods with wines, how tannins affect food tastes, and the interaction of sweeter wines with foods, and she has made a promising start in this area.
It was good to see Gregor Cattanach again. His card lists him as “Director of Scotch Knowledge,” but to most of us, he is “Mr. Johnny Walker.” I greatly enjoyed the Johnny Walker Green Label, and was intrigued to find out that this superior whisky is a blend of four single malts, Cragganmore, Talisker, Caol Ila and Linkwood, each at least fifteen years old. I told him that Johnny Walker Green is so rich and flavorful that it could easily substitute for cognac after a meal. He said that Brits had long made that switch. With the phyloxera plant disease that devastated the French wine industry (including cognac) in the late nineteenth century, Victorian Brits, who used to enjoy a brandy and soda after dinner, no longer could get the brandy. And so Scotch whisky and soda got a boost from the French industry’s misfortune. And that also explains why a decade or so is missing of the late nineteenth century vintages that are used in France to make superior cognac blends.
Michael Greene, Wine Consultant for Conde Nast Publications, and Joe Fattorini, the Herald Newspapers Wine Correspondent from Glasgow, Scotland, regaled us with their views on current wine trends. They noted that the American public wants wines that are fresher and lighter, and varietals currently popular include Pinot Gris (or Grigio) and Sauvignon Blanc. Rose wines are getting more popular (and now, I would add, are increasingly produced in the Bordeaux region). Wine buying is increasingly a buyer’s market, as more and more wines are produced.
Italy and Australia (now with 23 million cases) both now exceed France’s annual wine exports to the USA. They have a good feel for marketing, and the Australians developed a realistic wine marketing program for our new market - which has resulted in a fifteen fold increase in their export sales to our country in a very short time.
The interesting point was made that the California wine industry, after four decades, is fast becoming a mature industry. So much so, that in fact just as in France (with sad results, I would say, for the most part), corporate raiders are hovering for buying opportunities.
I also noticed that although some French wines were available for tasting, that was a small minority of the total wine offering. If this weekend is becoming a signature event for the midAtlantic states, one has to ask why French producers are so slow to showcase their own fine wines. The point was emphasized at the Auction held on Saturday afternoon. A bottle of 2001 Chateau d’Yquem did not receive its retail price. And a half dozen assortment of superior French wines, comprising a 2000 Chateau Gruaud Larose, a 1995 Chateau Leoville Las Cases, a 2002 Jadot Gevrey-Chambertin, a 2002 Girardin Corton Charlemagne grand cru, a 2001 Chateauneuf du Pape Domaine de Beaurenard, and a 2001 Chateau Rabaud Promis Sauternes, to the amazement of the auctioneer, also failed to command a good price.
The market is here, and demand is growing. But an uneducated demand will turn elsewhere. In the meantime, I wonder what it will take for French producers, and those who are supposed to represent their interests, to realize the opportunities they are missing to increase American demand for quality wines.
Wines of the Month
We greatly enjoyed a 1998 Bahans Haut Brion. This second wine of Chateau Haut Brion was full of deep flavor, and had good structure. It was not as complex as the parent wine, but then, one would expect that from a wine made from younger vines. It is enjoyable in its own right, and at $35, one could enjoy six bottles of this wine or one Chateau Haut Brion. Which would you choose?
I made several other fine wine discoveries at the St Michaels event. Rose de Calon 2005, a rose wine made by Chateau Calon Segur in the St. Estephe region of the Medoc area north of Bordeaux, is a satisfyingly refreshing, dry rose wine, a good example of this recent Bordelais venture into rose wine production. It is 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, and 15% Cabernet Franc, and retails for $13-$14. And I was very pleased with a Stellenbosch South African 2005 Sauvignon Blanc, a well made, superior example of this varietal. Both are worth seeking out. An Alexander Valley 2004 Viognier from Napa Valley, on the other hand, was at 14% too alcoholic, blowsy and unfocussed. Not a successful wine.
