The holidays are upon us. It’s the perfect time to pause, reflect, and count one’s blessings, and in the world of wine that’s often a bounty like no other. Allow me then to look back on the year, and mention a few things I’m grateful for.
The Vesper
At a party recently a friend thrust a drink under my nose and asked for my opinion. It’s called a Vesper, he said. No, not a scooter, or a prayer session, but a Martini-like concoction made with three parts gin, one part vodka, one-half part Lillet Blonde, and a twist of lemon.
Several precious lines of dialog are devoted to the Vesper in Casino Royale, the latest James Bond film featuring the latest Bond, Daniel Craig, as 007. At a poker table Bond asks for it by name, dictating its contents to the waitress. It happens to share its name with Bond’s love interest in the movie, and is so named, says 007, ‘because once you’ve had a taste, it’s all you ever want to drink.’
This speaks more to Bond’s amatory intentions than his taste, but whatever, the drink is delicious. Its flavors are pristine: a few dreamy seconds of creamy florals from the Lillet, like a marmalade made with white flower petals. Thereafter the fresh cut of juniper overtakes the aromatics, but the Lillet seems to soften and amplify the texture nicely, for a clean citrusy finish.
Is it too much to hope for that Casino Royale will do for Lillet Blonde what Sideways did for Pinot Noir? Probably, but it’s a relief to actually find a drink that’s not sweet, not thick, not fruity, not cloying or cloudy, that’s not some obscene color of blue or green and isn’t rimmed with candy. It’s nice, in short, that a Bond movie can inspire grown-up behavior.
Pinot Gris
We live in a world of bling, a world of the shiny, the flashy, and the loud, where the no-pants dance gets all the attention. It’s a world where the understated is often overlooked, and quiet strength is ever harder to discern and appreciate.
This is why I love Pinot Gris. It is quietly, consistently satisfying, never flashy, but firm in its intentions, demonstrative in expression. Sure, certain grigio iterations, both in the U.S. and Italy, can be pretty ordinary, but much of the gris from Oregon, Washington, New Zealand, Germany, Austria, Alsace, and the more high-minded producers in Italy can produce beautiful, vivid, subtle, wines. Ample, gently spiced gris’s greatest virtue is purity, a clear-eyed freshness, and if you were looking for an everyday white that won’t break the bank, you could do far worse. Just don’t expect a no-pants dance.
The Mountains
They’re tall, and steep, and I give thanks for the views they afford and the wines that come from them. Mountain wines are different. Perhaps it’s the very real peril that you sometimes encounter as you get there, or the vertigo you feel as you peer from a vine row toward the valley below, but those vineyards are thrilling, and the wines often possess a similar thrill.
No matter where these wines are produced — the baking slate of Priorat, the Alpine foothills of Piemonte, the stark volcanics of Veeder and Howell and Diamond, the granitic splendor of the Alto Adige, the slopes east of the Vosges in Alsace, and the spine of the Andes, there is a bracing quality to a mountain wine that few can dispute. Air, wind, temperature, and sunlight are all more dramatic in the higher altitudes, contributing to what might be called a mountain nerve to the wines, an inimitable grace to go along with the thrill.
Paul Draper, Ridge Vineyards
Simply put, no winemaker in California has been more consistent or forward thinking. Taking lessons he learned from Bordeaux more than forty years ago, he has crafted an American idiom subtly based on French technique, making iconic Cabernet blends from what seems even now like the most unlikely of places, the Santa Cruz Mountains.
He capitalized on the hidden beauty of old vine fruit, largely before other winemakers recognized its potential, creating an entire series of American icons from Zinfandel, a variety that wasn’t supposed to have any meaningful depth and complexity. He located and teased out its meaning.
His constancy can be seen as a kind of California touchstone, as styles in the Napa and Dry Creek Valleys have vacillated and contorted, as trends have come and gone. And this past summer two of his wines were chosen above some of Napa and Bordeaux’s greatest.
The occasion was the recreation of the Judgment of Paris in both Napa and London, and his young wine, a 2000 MonteBello, and his 1971 MonteBello, excelled above all others. We’ve been told for decades that American wines don’t age. Draper’s wines are living proof that this isn’t true. He is an American treasure.
The Anderson Valley
California gets hotter with each passing year, and grapevines bear their share of the brunt, pushing sugar levels and attendant alcohols to new stratospheres. So I find myself grateful for cool breezes, a mild sun, and for the state’s most stubbornly cool wine region, the Anderson Valley.
It lies well north of the big-ticket valleys of Napa and Sonoma, nestled in a pocket of hills modestly protected by a cruel Pacific just to its west. It’s a serious schlep to get to, and for this reason it remains bucolic and untouched, possessed of a rural mentality that has a touch of hippie to it, contributing to its reputation as the most dedicated organic region in all of California.
It’s almost as if this valley’s isolation has insulated it from the peculiar and at times unnatural adornments that are increasingly common in California wines, like high alcohols, unnatural ripeness, and excessive oak regimes.
The wines here remain stubbornly pristine, unadorned, aromatic, and low in alcohol. There are wonderful sparkling wines, beautifully aromatic whites, and some of the most promising Pinot Noir in the state. Here’s to hoping it stays exactly as it is, as far from the rest of California as it can.
Champagne
For all of it, every drop, and every occasion I have to taste it, I’m thankful.