Wine around the world

After nearly five years of writing about wine on the Internet, you wouldn't believe all the things that I've been propositioned with. Of course, I get a lot of wine samples, but I also get all sorts of unsolicited e-mail offers of sample products (many of which have nothing to with wine), offers to pay me to review products or services, requests to visit various places, to have dinner with strangers, not to mention all the honest questions and requests for advice from wine lovers.

One of the oddest e-mails I've ever gotten however, was an e-mail that simply read something along the lines of, "Thank you for reviewing a Hungarian wine. This is a good wine, but there are many good wines in Hungary. I would like to bring you some one day."

I respond to all the e-mail I get, so I naturally wrote back thanking the gentleman for his offer and said he'd be welcome to if he really wanted to go to the effort. And then I promptly forgot about the exchange.

A little over a year later, however, I got another e-mail from the same guy telling me that his father was going to be passing through San Francisco, and he had a package for me. Sure enough, a few days later, there was a stranger standing on my doorstep, thrusting a brown box into my hands and fleeing down the stairs with little more than a shy "OK!" and my call of "Thanks!" at his heels.

I'm used to getting wine from wineries, publicists, and importers. Most of the time they don't even bother asking me if I want it, it just shows up. But I'm quite unused to strangers offering me bottles simply out of what I assume in this case is immense kindness coupled with some national pride. Wine sparks something special in people that never ceases to amaze me.

Carefully wrapped inside the heavy brown box, triple sealed with tape, double wrapped with bubble wrap, I found a little treasure trove of Hungarian wine. I have no idea how my mysterious benefactor selected these wines, or whether he has any relationship with these vintners, but they represented a wider selection of Hungarian wine than I had ever had access to before, so there was only one thing to do. I sat down and tasted them.

Hungary is one of the least known wine regions of Europe, especially as far as most Americans are concerned. Those who are serious dessert wine lovers, however, may likely have heard of Tokaji Aszú, an amber colored sweet wine that has been coveted by wine lovers and royalty since the early 17th century.

In many ways the fame and popularity of Tokaji Aszú has eclipsed what is a broad and beautifully diverse wine region that produces many interesting red and white wines. Many people consider Hungary to be a serious up-and-coming concern in the wine world. Over a drink a few months ago, Lettie Teague, Executive Wine Editor for Food & Wine Magazine let it slip that she thought dry Furmint was the veritable Next Big Thing, at least as far as white wines were concerned. I raised an eyebrow, but she was dead serious. Furmint is one of several white wine varieties native to Hungary (it's one of the components of Tokaji Aszú), and alone it can be made into lovely dry and off-dry wine.

In addition to whites, Hungary's next most famous wine would probably be Bikavér, or "Bulls Blood," a red wine of generally mediocre quality that has been a favorite in Eastern Europe for centuries. Where one finds middling red wine, however, it is often possible to find much better, and that is certainly true of Hungary, especially in the 21st century. With a long tradition of growing red wine grapes, including Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, there are more and more producers who are attempting to make wines of extremely high quality, and some are succeeding.

Needless to say, as someone who enjoys "exploring" wine regions off the beaten path, this gift of wines was a real treat. Thank you.

TASTING NOTES

2006 Hollóvár Pincészet "Somloi" Furmint, Száraz Minõségi Fehérbor, Hungary
Medium blonde in the glass, this wine has a hint of honey and roasted wheat aromas in the nose. In the mouth it is smooth and lush, and bursting with fruit flavors that range from yellow plums to kiwifruit, with overtones of chamomile and other floral scents that linger into a long finish. Score: between 8.5 and 9.

2006 Royal Tokaji Furmint, Hungary
Pale gold in color, this wine has a very peculiar nose of celery and lipstick aromas. In the mouth it straightens up and flies right with flavors of unripe apples and candle wax, but doesn't manage much more than pleasant flavors. Score: around 8. Cost $15.
Where to buy?

2004 Grof Degenfeld Tokaji Furmint, Hungary
Pale green-gold in the glass, this wine has a waxy nose with subdued but juicy aromas of starfruit. In the mouth it offers nice flavors of unripe apple and starfruit, combined with a slightly waxy quality. Unfortunately the wine doesn't possess quite as much acidity as it should in my opinion, which makes it fall a little flat on the palate, despite delicious flavors. Score: around 8.5.

2006 Kiralyudvar Tokaji Sec, Hungary
Pale green-gold in color, this wine smells like what I think a melon perfume might smell like if anyone ever tried to make one. In the mouth it offers gorgeous flavors of a cornucopia of tropical fruits. I'm sitting here looking at my tasting note feeling a little ridiculous at the string of adjectives I wrote down: golden apples, melon, yellow plums, gooseberries. Great acidity gives this wine a bounce on the palate and a juiciness through its long finish. Excellent. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $28 .
Where to buy?

2006 Kiralyudvar "Lapis" Late Harvest Tokaji Furmint, Hungary
Yellow gold in the glass, this wine smells of honey and sultanas. In the mouth it feels satiny and thick on the tongue and offers slightly sweet flavors of apricot, honeysuckle, and pineapple, with a spicy undercurrent that lasts through the moderate finish. This is a very unique wine with a great personality. Score: around 9. Cost: $20

2000 Hetfurtos Tokaji Aszú 6 Puttonyos, Hungary
Bright orange-gold in color, this wine has a heady bouquet of honey and tamarind fruit. In the mouth it is thick, liquid silk that is buoyed up by bright shining acidity meaning that instead of being syrupy, this wine is a live, electric stream of apricot essence straight to the taste buds. It is however, so sweet it makes my teeth hurt, but no matter. This is dessert we're talking about here. Score: between 9 and 9.5.

2004 Malatinszky Kuria Cabernet Franc, Villanyi, Hungary
Medium garnet in color, this wine has a distinctive, nutty set of aromas on the nose. In the mouth that nutty quality continues with flavors of hazelnuts, almond skin, and leather wrapped around a core of red fruit, and structured with slightly grippy tannins. Score: between 8.5 and 9.

2004 Weininger & Gere Cabernet Franc, Villanyi, Hungary
Inky ruby in the glass, this wine has a lush nose of cherry and plum aromas. In the mouth it has a lovely balance between bright cherry and plum fruit, and a green wood quality that gives it an earthy depth and attitude. Nice length on the palate and smooth texture make this a very nice wine. Score: around 9.

I wrote a post over a year ago entitled Grand Jury Cru, which described the unfortunate plight of the wineries of St. Emilion in Bordeaux, who at the time had recently been told by a French court that the reclassification of the Chateaux (into Grand Cru, Premiere Cru, etc.) was null and void.

At the time everyone, including myself, believed there would be a political resolution to the issue by the time the current vintage went into bottles. And indeed, the issue yo-yo'ed back and forth several more times as the French bureaucracy and the lobbying bodies tussled over the issue.

Unfortunately, however, the clock finally ran out on July 2nd, 2008, and the appeal failed. The courts ruled with finality that the 2006 reclassification, which shook up the established hierarchy by demoting several Chateaux and promoting a number of others, was invalid.

The implications of this ruling include the fact that many Chateaux cannot legally label their wines now, because those labels contain, in some cases, Cru designations that are null and void.

But wait, this just in!

On Friday, at the request of the INAO (Institut National de l'Orgine et de la Qualité -- the government body responsible for wine regulations) the French government issued an emergency decree that extends the last classification (revised in 1996) for the next three years.

The poor winemakers of St. Emilion must have whiplash by now.

This latest episode of what may prove a modern day Jarndyce and Jarndyce, doesn't really help anyone, as most winemakers concerned will have to re-print their labels, but at least it will allow wines (if properly labeled) to be sold.

Maybe in protest the winemakers should just label all the wines with varietal names.

Read the full story.

The wines of Alsace are some of the most unique and distinctive in the world. They are also some of my favorites, not only because they are delicious, but also because they are made by some of France's most individualistic and headstrong vintners.

Alsace has long been a place apart, both from France and Germany, each of which have laid claim over the valleys and hills that lie west of the Rhine river which currently demarcates the border between the two nations. It's easy to characterize the region as a smooth and quirky blend between the two countries, but such a simple description belies the unique nature of the region, especially when it comes to its cuisine and its wine.

Alsace is the only region of France whose wines have historically been labeled with varietal names (though since 2001 they can now bear the names of their Grand Cru vineyards). Alsace was also the first wine region to adopt Biodynamic viticulture, the holistic growing and winemaking regimen based on the teachings of Rudolph Steiner. Since it's first Biodynamic vineyard in 1960, Alsace has been at the forefront of the movement. The region can now claim to be the most Biodynamic winegrowing region in France, with more than 37,000 acres of vineyards and more than 57 producers adhering to the strict and often bizarre methods of cultivation and winemaking.

Though I count myself as a skeptic of many of the processes and beliefs associated with Biodynamics, I must also admit that some of the greatest wines in the world (not to mention the greatest winemakers of the world) are Biodynamic. So there's clearly something to it.

Which is why when Alsatian vintner Marc Kreydenweiss talks about selecting vineyard sites based on their exceptional vibrations and constructing his wine cellars using the golden ratio and an "accumulator to charge the telluric and cosmic forces" I have to roll my eyes a bit, but then enthusiastically explore his range of distinctive wines that are made in small quantities and with the extreme care that characterizes Biodynamic methods.

Kreydenweiss took over the farming and winemaking of his family's domaine in 1970 at the tender age of 23. At the time, the 12 or so acres that his family owned were producing grapes for sale to neighbors, despite a history of winegrowing in the very same vineyards that stretched back nearly three centuries and included periods of great renown for the little hillsides of schist and sandstone. Kreydenweiss set out to recapture some of the glory of this history, and spent the next two decades acquiring additional neighboring vineyard plots and overhauling the domaine's winegrowing practices to focus on low yields and strictly organic farming. In 1991 Kreydenweiss converted the first of his vineyards to Biodynamic techniques, and the rest of the vineyards soon followed.

Today Kreydenweiss farms a little less than 30 acres of vineyards in Alsace, which include portions of three Grand Cru vineyards: Kastelberg, Moenchberg, and Weibelsberg. The domaine produces a number of small production wines from the typical grapes of the region.

Like most of the long time winemakers of Alsace, Kreydenweiss is fervently dedicated to his terroir. But unlike many of his colleagues, he harbors a desire that is hard to quench with the soils and the wines of his home: deep red wine.

Alsace grows a bit of Pinot Noir, of course, but it is almost exclusively a white wine region. So when Kreydenweiss wanted to make himself a red wine, he needed to look elsewhere. His quest for distinctive terroir eventually led him to the far south end of the Rhone valley, in an appellation called Costieres de Nimes. Here he found rich soils supporting old-vine Carignane, Mourvedre, Syrah, and Grenache, and a place to make red wines with the same passion as his whites. This review does not include these wines, but they are quite good, and are excellent values, to boot.

Only about 20% of the estate's small production levels reach the United States. I have tasted the domaine's wines each year for the past three years and found them quite consistently good. I often have a small complaint -- that they tend to lack enough acidity for my palate -- but the most recent vintages seem to have improved in this department. The wines below are some of the best I have ever had from the domaine.

Full disclosure: I received these wines as press samples.

TASTING NOTES:

2005 Marc Kreydenweiss "Wiebelsberg" Riesling Grand Cru, Alsace
Pale green gold in the glass, this wine has an amazing nose of star fruit, herbs, floral notes and unknown, exotic scents. In the mouth it is bright and beautiful, with nice acidity wrapped around flavors of apples and exotic fruits. Like some of the best Rieslings, it manages to be sweet without any trace of sugar, but also savory in some obscure respect. A forever finish makes this a wine to savor, quietly, alone or with friends that require little conversation. Score: around 9.5. Cost: $35. Where to buy?

2006 Marc Kreydenweiss "Kritt" Pinot Blanc, Alsace
Pale gold in the glass, this wine smells of honey and old parchment. In the mouth it offers a light sweetness (it is slightly off-dry) flavored like delicate honey, and aromas of white flowers that soar into a long finish. The wine has a soft character (just a hair light on acidity), but this cannot mar what is otherwise a lovely concoction. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $30. Where to buy?

2005 Marc Kreydenweiss Andlau Riesling, Alsace
A pale green gold color, this wine smells of honey poached pears. In the mouth it is gorgeous chalky and dry, with beautifully balanced flavors of honey, white flowers, and citrus zest. The long finish is mostly citrus dominated, and lovely to behold. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $22.Where to buy?

2005 Marc Kreydenweiss "Kritt" Pinot Blanc, Alsace
Pale green gold in color, this wine has a stony nose of apple and pear aromas. On the palate it is a little waxy in flavor, with a nice texture and a smoky quality that wraps around core flavors of unripe apples, and spiced pears. Like its brethren, the wine possesses a lovely finish, though perhaps less complexity. Score: around 9. Cost: $24. Where to buy?

2005 Marc Kreydenweiss "Clos Rebberg" Pinot Gris, Alsace
Light gold in color, this wine has a nose of chamomile, dried herbs, and yellow flowers. In the mouth it offers quite distinctive flavors of bee pollen, dandelions and honey. Well balanced with a lovely finish, the wine dances on the palate. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $32. Where to buy?

If you'd rather drink your wine instead of intellectualizing about it, close your browser window now. However, if you're game for an occasional foray into philosophy, then let's talk about something I've been "arguing" about with one of my readers.

The question at hand is whether subjective judgments have any place in proper wine criticism. To put it plainly, should wine critics evaluations of wine include notions of "enjoyment" or "personal preference" ? If you want to witness the origins of this discussion, you'll need to read the comment thread on my recent post about the Myth of the Monolithic Palate.

My reader friend Arthur, who runs his own wine blog called Winesooth, suggests that the inclusion of such judgments in wine criticism may be responsible for the fact that people blindly follow some critics and their scores. According to him, if I correctly interpret his point of view, the wine world would probably be a much better place if critics focused their evaluations of wine on purely "objective criteria" like flavor, texture, color, finish, aroma, etc. The idea being that it's much better for a critic to simply tell you, for instance, the ingredients and cooking method for a given plate of food, and let you make up your own mind about it, than to tell you how wonderful a dish it is (in addition to what it might be made of).

I, on the other hand, suggest that not only is it impossible to eliminate subjectivity from wine criticism, but that such subjectivity itself is quite possibly the most important aspect of wine criticism. I'm of the opinion that merely telling you the ingredients of a dish (or the organoleptic qualities of wine) is not criticism at all, or if it is a kind of criticism, it is certainly not useful. I've had lots of Merlot that tastes like plum, cherry, and chocolate, but some of it is total crap, while others transport me to fantastic, sensual places.

If you'd like to dive deeper into the philosophical nature of aesthetic criticism, and wine criticism in particular you'd be hard pressed to find a better set of blog posts than two recent ones I recently discovered.

The first is by a guy named Ben Sherwin, who barrels headlong into the guts of aesthetic epistemology by asking, and answering the question, "how do we know if one wine is really better than another?" Specifically, he addresses the question of whether Lafite-Rothschild is really, truly better than Boone's Farms, and why? (The answer, in case you were wondering, is most definitely yes).

Ben's post inspired Keith Levenberg to explore the nature of subjectivity versus objectivity in aesthetic evaluations. Keith suggests that those who are experts in an aesthetic field are capable of making objective judgments about things which most people find to be subjective. Many people like one artist or another, but expert critics, and the establishment that they make up as a group are quite capable of making a definitive judgment about what artwork is better than another, or even what really constitutes art in the first place.

In the service of my argument with Arthur, I might suggest that the subjective judgments of wine critics (especially those who actually know what the heck they're doing, as opposed to hacks and bloggers ;-) are actually produced through the synthesis of the type of objective aesthetic judgments that Keith explicates nicely in his post.

The appreciation of beauty is ultimately an emotional, subjective act, but the detailed and complete apprehension of beauty, especially in its complex forms such as music, art, and wine requires a body of knowledge and a set of objective observations. The two go hand in hand. Appreciation without knowledge may be pleasurable, but it is shallow. Apprehension without appreciation may be detailed, but it ignores our humanity and the truth of emotion.

We look to critics not just to analyze, but to make aesthetic judgments, and their assessments are necessarily born of the human condition: we have both perceptions and emotions, and we can no more divorce the two than we can give up our humanity. The real question is whose perceptions and emotions do we trust?

Thanks to Jack at Fork & Bottle for pointing me to Keith's post, which led me to Ben's.

This constitutes the first and possibly the only time you will ever find me endorsing, recommending, and generally plugging a commercial product (that isn't a bottle of wine or sake) here on Vinography.

There are two clear reasons for this.

The first is that the product I am endorsing is free. The second is because I designed it.

Those of you who know a little bit about me may be aware that by day I run an interactive design and strategy consulting firm called HYDRANT, which, among other things designs some of the best e-commerce and web applications in the world. Apart from employing my company's expertise a little in the design of this blog, I generally tend to keep these two careers of mine entirely separate. Or at least I did until about 18 months ago when we agreed to help a company called Vinfolio build the best wine cellar management software on the planet.

And today I am extremely proud to announce the launch of a public beta of that software, under the name VinCellar. This is a beta version of a web-based software product, which means that it still has some rough edges, only includes about 80% of the functionality that we have designed, and is subject to somewhat radical modification at any moment as we see fit, but in spite of that, it totally kicks ass.

VinCellar is designed to help a specific type of wine lover: anyone who has a wine collection that numbers at least one more bottle than they are capable of remembering off the top of their head. The more wine you own, the more useful you will likely find this software application, but even those with a very modest number of bottles may discover that this software will help them manage, maintain, and enjoy the wine they own.

Until today, there has really only been one truly sophisticated wine cellar management solution out there. While there are a host of desktop and web based software systems on the market, ranging in price from free to several thousands of dollars, I've seen almost all of them, and the only one that actually has most of the functionality needed to help wine lovers manage their cellars is a free web-based application called CellarTracker.

The only problem is that in addition to sophisticated functionality, CellarTracker offers its users an incredibly horrible, teeth-grindingly painful, ugly, and all around completely unusable user interface. Of course, that doesn't mean that thousands of people haven't gritted their teeth and learned to use it despite these massive usability flaws.

But the best tools should not only NOT be painful to use, they should be pleasurable. Just ask an iPhone owner if you need a further explanation of this principle.

And just as Apple's graphical user interface showed the world that there was an alternative to DOS based computing in 1984, it is my hope that many wine lovers will recognize the degree to which VinCellar represents a new paradigm in interacting with your wine collection. In short, wine cellar management just got a hell of a lot more fun.

The main purpose of this application is, of course, helping you do stuff with (or to) your wine collection -- from figuring out what you've got, where it is, how much it's worth, what you've bought, and what you want to drink, to what you probably should drink, what you should sell, and what you might not know about your wine consuming habits because you've never looked at the trends before.

In addition to tools to easily add, remove, reposition, edit, sell, analyze, and generally keep track of individual bottles or whole collections, the application also allows you to rate wines, add your own tasting notes, and see the scores and notes that others (including major wine critics) have made on any wine. These notes are pretty much the most useful part of CellarTracker, and they will likely become a very important source of value in VinCellar over time as well.

Finally, while it might be just enough to change the game by offering 98% of the same functionality as your major competitor with a much more usable interface, VinCellar today has dozens of useful (and entertaining) features that don't exist in any cellar management application, such as the ability to visually browse your wine cellar by label image, the ability to perform actions on multiple wines at once, and the tools to do sophisticated graphical analysis on all or a portion of your collection. And that's just for starters. Some of the features we've designed are so cool that we're not finished implementing them yet, so you'll just have to hang in there.

If you've read this far, thanks for indulging my excitement, and I hope you'll take the time to go check out VinCellar. Set up an account and add or import some wines to check out how the thing works.

It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn good. A few more features, a few bug fixes, and a bunch more tasting notes will take it from pretty good to awesome.

Let me know what you think: www.vincellar.com

By W. Blake Gray

"Spring Snow" is a pretty good nickname for a sake because it sounds not just delicate and natural, but outright freaky when you think about it. Snowing in springtime? You don't see that often.

Same for its sake namesake -- although in this case, blame not Mother Nature, but the US government.

Akitabare "Shunsetsu" ("spring snow") Nama Honjozo is highly unusual because it combines a class of sake we often see in the U.S. -- nama -- with one that we don't, honjozo.

Honjozo sakes are basically the same quality as junmai sakes, because at least 30 percent of the outer part of the rice is polished away. They're very popular in Japan. But because of US tax law on imported sake, they're uncommon here.

"Junmai" means "pure rice": nothing but rice, water and koji mold goes into a junmai sake.
For honjozos, brewer's alcohol may be added during the process. Usually this is done to create a lighter, less intense, more subdued style. Think about the difference between Italian Pinot Grigio and Alsatian Pinot Gris. The honjozo is more like the Pinot Grigio -- crisp, light-bodied, meant for food, at the sacrifice of some aromatic and flavor intensity. Yet there are plenty of mild dishes in Japanese cuisine that a richly flavored sake (or a full-bodied, super-aromatic Pinot Gris) would overpower.

Honjozo sakes are big in Japan partly because of their food friendliness, and partly because their easy quaffability makes it easy to drink quickly enough to get shitfaced. Japanese don't drink halfway.

However, while honjozo sakes are generally the same price or cheaper than junmais in Japan, in the US they are significantly more expensive. The US government taxes them at a higher rate because alcohol is added, so they drop into the same category as fortified wines like Port.

That, and the fact that junmai has the better connotation in the US of being "pure," has kept honjozo sakes from making any headway in this market.

This honjozo is an oddity because it's also "nama," which means unpasteurized. It doesn't taste like any other sake I've had on these shores. More on that in a moment.

The brewery, based in Akita prefecture in chilly northern Honshu on the Japan Sea side, claims to be bound by tradition. The company's junmai label proclaims "koshiki junzukuri" -- the old way. And the brewery claims to have been using some of the same tools for the past century (In case you're wondering, the US Air Force didn't bother flying that far north.)
And yet, Akitabare's sake lineup is pretty innovative. The daiginjo is bottle-aged for two years, which is almost heresy in an industry focused on freshness. And then there's this sake, which -- because it's nama -- is most definitely "drink now."

Before that spring snow melts.

Tasting Notes:
The aroma is complex, with notes of cream, mustard powder, orange rind, oyster shell, melon and shrimp. But it doesn't prepare you for what you're about to taste. Neither does the mouthfeel, which is a big plus: it's tight and creamy at the same time, with a taut center and a long taut finish.

What I taste from this is melon, and plenty of it -- the characteristic of a nama, but definitely not a characteristic of most honjozos. I also taste notes of cream and oyster shell. It's a little pungent and never fattens up. That's a good thing -- it's very food-friendly.

Food Pairing:
I had it with Chinese delivery food -- sliced fish sauteed with bok choy, spinach with garlic and vegetable chow mein -- and it was excellent.

Overall Score: around 9

How Much?: $20

This wine is available for purchase on the Internet.

I'm sorry about that headline. I couldn't help myself. Everyone else is doing it.

When I first started writing about wine several years ago, I thought one of the things I might do was to help my readers keep up with the health news surrounding wine, so I started posting little tidbits every time I saw a news item about the health benefits of wine. After about three weeks it was clear that unless I was planning on writing the Wine and Health Blog, there was just no way I could possibly cover it all. There's a new bit of news practically every week about how red wine cures everything from cancer to genital herpes.

I've speculated before about why the health benefits of wine seems to be such a popular topic with researchers and the only reason I could come up with was that the researchers just need the merest shred of an excuse to spend their grant monies on booze.

But don't take that as demeaning the quality of or the need for such research. I'm just a bit bemused as to how much of it seems to be pouring out of the halls of academia around the world, proclaiming that yes, red wine will cure just about anything.

The latest bit of research purportedly shows that drinking red wine while eating cooked meat is better for you than eating the same meat while sipping a Diet Coke, for instance.

Of course, we've known since ancient times that drinking wine with food was good for you -- in the old days it was the water that got you sick (and occasionally the food too) so consuming massive quantities of wine was not only fun, but good for staving off dysentery and other nasties. Red wine with your tomatoes, anyone?

This most recent research focuses on wine's antioxidant properties, which seem to reduce the toxins that are a byproduct of our guts trying to break down the fats in the meat. Eating steak apparently shortens your life, but drinking red wine while you do it makes everything OK! (in addition to curing Leprosy, of course).

Like all such studies, we must take these results with a grain of salt, but they certainly are encouraging, nonetheless. Not like you needed an excuse to pop the cork on a nice bottle with your steak dinner....

Read the full article.

Thanks to Jack at Fork & Bottle for sending me the link.

The trunk contains a cooler. The cooler contains ten bottles of wine: three whites, two rosés, and five reds. In four hours I will be miles from nowhere. No cell phone coverage, no Internet access -- just the wife, the baby daughter, four days' supply of vino and a corkscrew.

My oldest friend in the world is getting married outside of Yosemite this weekend and I'm a Bridesman, or whatever you might want to call it. I have three jobs over the next few days: get stuff done for the wedding, stand up there at the altar without looking like a slob, and try to get people drunk.

I suppose it says something about my life these days that this is the first time (of perhaps two dozen) that I will be entering Yosemite National Park without a full rack of climbing gear, several ropes, a tent, and a five day supply of Clif bars. Instead I've got 90 diapers, two packs of wipes, a stroller, a bassinet, a car seat, twelve onesies, a breast pump, and three kinds of sunscreen and mosquito repellent.

Oh yeah. And a cooler full of wine and a corkscrew.

So you won't see much blogging going on 'round here over the Independence Day Weekend. I guess I'm celebrating by reasserting my independence from this laptop.

I hope you enjoy your weekend if you are in the United States, and for those of you from elsewhere in the world, see if you have some independence of your own to celebrate. Just make sure you do it with a nice bottle of wine.

Cheers,

Alder

The Vineyard Fence
"One of the things I really enjoy about Michael's approach to Vineyard photography has to do with his willingness to avoid the traditional ways of looking at a vineyard in favor of the unexpected. Sometimes the vineyard almost becomes a minor detail in the overall landscape, but we are nonetheless drawn to it, however subtle." -- Alder Yarrow

INSTRUCTIONS:
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PRINTS:
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By W. Blake Gray

How much does the type of rice matter in sake? "Not much," most experts say. But I disagree, and one of my favorite breweries, Dewazakura from Yamagata prefecture, has made it possible to taste for yourself.

Wine lovers may take it as a given that rice "varietals" matter. We all believe we can tell a Pinot Noir from a Cabernet Sauvignon without difficulty. So why wouldn't we be able to taste the difference between Yamada Nishiki and Gohyakumangoku?

With sake, though, the brewing process has always been considered more important than the type of rice. The best example is the most expensive category. Daiginjos -- for which at least 50 percent of the outer portion of the rice has been polished away -- generally taste like other daiginjos, no matter where they're from or what rice is used.

Polish a little less, though, and you start noticing regional variation. At the non-ginjo junmai level -- for which at least 30 percent of the rice has been polished away -- sakes start to exhibit regional characteristics. Niigata sakes tend to taste crisp and clean, for example, while Hiroshima sakes are soft and on the sweet side.

However, sake experts generally attribute regional differences to water. This makes sense. Few breweries own their own rice paddies, and many buy rice from distant prefectures. Water, however, is always local, and is the largest component of sake. (Incidentally, I have had Japanese brewing experts tell me the best sake water in the United States is in Arkansas, in case anybody there wants to start a brewery.)

Yet even while denying that rice matters much, breweries implicitly show that it matters a great deal. Yamada nishiki rice, originally from the Kobe area, is generally considered the best for sake. It has been planted in many other areas of Japan and is also purchased by breweries in many prefectures.

Personally I think everything matters in making premium sake, just as it does with wine. I can't claim to be enough of an expert to detect the difference made by different strains of yeast, but winemakers and sake brewers can, and I believe them. So why do so many sake experts spend so much time claiming rice is immaterial?

At this point I should acknowledge that the owner of this blog, proud new poppa Alder Yarrow, is in the rice-doesn't-matter camp. I told him I think I have an affinity for sakes made from gohyakumangoku rice, and he told me I couldn't possibly know that for sure. So I have hijacked his blog for 24 hours to deliver this dissenting opinion. Alder, I think your daughter needs you ...

Anyway, back to Dewazakura. These guys are technological innovators who also happen to make some great sake. Their "Dewasansan" brew, named after the strain of rice specifically developed for their prefectural climate conditions, is one of my go-to choices in restaurants around town because it's both delicious and widely available.

However, the Dewasansan brew is not a pure test of the taste qualities of the rice itself. One important factor is that Dewasansan uses a different yeast than the company's other main premium brew, nicknamed "Oka." Its alcohol percentage is a little higher than Oka's, and it's not quite as dry.

Enter the beverage geek's sake: Dewazakura Oka Yamadanishiki. This small-production version of the Oka sake has the same yeast and fermentation regimen as the everyday Oka; the only major difference is the rice.

I opened them side-by-side to see if I could taste the difference. They have similarities, the result of a master brewer's attempt to create a consistent style from year to year. Both are creamy with notes of peach.

But to me they are more different than alike. The Yamadanishiki version is stronger on the nose, with more pronounced peach notes and a funky clay-earth like note that I like. The regular version, made from Miyamanishiki rice, smells more straightforwardly creamy, with a chalky note.

On the palate, it's the same: the Yamadanishiki version is fruitier, fuller and has a longer finish. But that's not to say some people won't prefer the regular version, which has a smoother mouthfeel and an appealing white chocolate note.

The great thing about Dewazakura's two versions of "Oka" is that you don't have to listen to some wine writer talk about how he tasted tank samples and he really grasped the difference the rice strain makes. These are commercial products available for sale, and neither is particularly expensive. You can just go out and buy a bottle of each and prove to yourself that the strain of rice matters.

Dewazakura "Oka," Yamagata Prefecture. $25 Where to buy?
Dewazakura "Oka Yamadanishiki," Yamagata Prefecture. $25 Where to buy?

I now return you to this blog's regular programming.

After drinking sake made from it, W. Blake Gray enjoys trying to say "gohyakumangoku" 10 times fast. He lives in San Francisco.