south african loveliness, and ah, the clamor of christmas and billy goats

I have always adored Christmas, amidst all its floridity, pageantry, and naturally the ceremony of it all. Seemingly I have an unusual amount of energy, fervor; and yet, an inordinate amount of tolerance. Gratitude. Love. Affection.  Christmas is these things for me. But—the widely held notion that with all these beautiful wisps of humanness comes inevitable stress, fervid whirling –[or not so fervid, instead whirling in tedium] it rings true for most. With this, the arrival of Christmas brings with it a need for something assuaging. A step behind the curtain, a place beyond rising blood pressure, anxiety, and impatience; and instead a step into tolerance and gratitude and affection. Comfort and prettiness. Humor and ease.

Humor indeed, in my brood. Goats roamed about my kitchen on Christmas. As I write this even, tempted to refer to my siblings and myself as little ‘goats’, I remember with that affection a book my father read to us as wee things about ‘Billy Goats Gruff’.  From one of the most avant-garde and leading winemakers in New World regions, Goats do Roam Red, 2010. Plush, warm, and pretty and sufficiently appropriate for stepping behind the curtain of holiday clamor. And what an assuagement: I outwardly extoll, evangelize, proselytize the wonders of Rhone Valley wines; I honor wines made in the New World with the intent to mirror the practices and grapes of Rhone Valley vintners. And how I adore humor and casualness in the approach of a modern winemaker, disregarding his own threats of pageantry and ceremony always somewhere lurking in the world of wine.

Goats do Roam is thoroughly modern and very young in the scope of wine legacy, as it proudly represents the steadily improving wine economy of South Africa. For this blend from the most recent vintage, a tradition-minded mélange of Rhone grapes: my most cherished syrah dominating, alongside cinsault, mourvedre and carignan. In South Africa, the WO—Wine of Origin—identified regions of the most prominence are arguably Stellenbosch, Paarl, and Worcester, all near Cape Town. Goats do Roam’s particular blend of these Rhone grapes incorporates Paarl and Swartland sourcing, both of which are in the Western Cape appellation. Thus, the wine is classified as Wine of Origin Western Cape.

Borrowing from my beloved, the Goats do Roam winemakers-- who initially created only three wines: a red, a white, and a rose; and now produce hilarious but beautiful bottlings named as ‘Goat Roti’-a twist on the Cote-Rotie, ‘Bored Doe’-a play on a Bordelaise blend, among others.—obviously designated their winery to hint towards the Rhone’s Cotes du Rhone appellation. (Love it and any Cotes du Rhone I can get my hands on) Accordingly, the first wines were blends, as done by their namesake.

A joy, a breath of casualness: both the presence of fresh berries and those silkened by cooking, red and black, aromas of smoke and spice. An amazingly plush, silken-textured wine; very ripe, but neither too overwhelmed with sweet fruit or alcohol.

 Just lovely, abundantly characterful—characterful just like its South African producer, and characterful, suitably, just like the atmosphere created by my silly, casual, but affectionate family  in its Christmas revelry. Because, in essence, Christmas is a meeting of the old and new, of past tradition and life evolving—circumstances change, children become adults, the circuitry of family changes—and gratitude and love bring us to an honor for familial histories;  what else could be more fitting than all this reflected in a wine?

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l'art du vin amusant par moi!

VdPs, understated elegance, and baron philippe

Charmed  I was by a short piece on Wall Street’s On Wine column, which is my favorite online wine read, which addressed the precarious task of selecting wines to bring to holiday parties; this engagement I met with two evenings prior. It is an amusing idea, actually; the ultimate wine choices for gatherings depend on a variety of conditions.

One, it may be a case where one knows there already will be ample wine present on the occasion—but those of a seasoned wine celebrant or collector. Here is where one wants to avoid embarrassment if it’s known that the host is fond of high dollar or cult wines. And here is where it is wonderful to know wines of amazing quality and reliability but of manageable price; perhaps an unclassified wine from a revered producer or region, or my favorite for extra fun, a rather esoteric and enigmatic wine about which one can knowledgeably extoll the virtues. [A touch of friendly one-upmanship, perhaps].

agents of ease and their occasional value

There are wines meant to be agents of ease, of breeziness, aimed to step easily into the realm of universality. Wines relatively incomplex, but not in the way of rusticity--they are polished by the seasoned winemaker's hand-- and whose simplicity is meant to be congenial and popularized. Yes, of course if one asks a critic of the whole New World domain, he would contend that this is the primary fault; that New World wineries collectively create, force wines that are homogenized and decorated and bastardized by the villainized 'flying winemaker'. Okay, sure. This condition does in fact exist. Does it mean that all New World wines are tainted by the insipid influence of a great equalizer? My understanding is that absolutely not. Having said this, the aforementioned wines that are crafted to live as amenable sources of pleasure for many, to elude a highbrow existence--these certainly have their place at the table.

honoring mondavi, contd.

For a successive piece on the wines and world of Robert Mondavi: Robert Mondavi Winery Napa Valley Merlot from the 2005 vintage, selected to be expository of the longevity and quality of the signature wines, and to posit the signature Napa Valley line beside the more humble Woodbridge wines. 2005s from Napa are still frequently found due to the abundant vintage; If Bordeaux enjoyed a great year in 2005, then with certainty many Napa wineries were likewise able to create balanced wines, even with large crops.
This merlot revealed that its enjoyment could even have been considered premature--this wine, I suspect, could have laid down for more time; tight and tannins a bit chewy at first, and with a fairly high alcohol content, it unfurled slowly with time. This wine did not blazen itself as a merlot, though, with its different notes than one expects from merlot. What a beauty, though, to accompany food: an incredibly fragrant nose of red fruits--cherries, red plums, and spice. This wine was redolent of a dense, syrupy cooked fruit creation; as it softened with air came the lush, full bodied mouthfeel of this dense fruit--and a rather bold suggestion of a cherry liqueur. After time, menthol appeared; the finish with this excellent quality wine was long.

This wine, ripe as is typical of Napa, however balanced well, is best alongside bold food; the alcohol and tannins render it a bit abrasive for drinking alone; but certainly Mondavi's 2005 merlot is an appropriate example of the approachability and affordability of his finer wines--this one around merely $21. Of course, Robert Mondavi has been a herald for cabernet and sauvignon blanc since the 60s--but merlot does brilliantly well in Napa as well and this wine is proof positive--contemporarily, that is. The corpus of The House of Mondavi , which I am reading concurrent with exploration of his wines, is that the Mondavi mark faced a period of falling from grace; and so fortunately Mondavi as a legacy, an empire, has been resurrected.
Again, the crux of the Mondavi crusade is availability; the excellent signature wines are incredibly obtainable.