Get Fresh with Barbera

Who doesn't want fresh? Just-picked, farm-to-fork and catch-of-the-day freshness are easily understood when used to describe produce, eggs or the local fish catch. But freshness also applies to wine, despite being bottled and aged. For wine, as with food, fresh is the ultimate compliment.

Say fresh to describe a white or pink wine to a wine lover and their mental switchboard lights up with sensory images. Fresh may conjure a racy, kiwi-scented Sauvignon Blanc or a watermelon-cool rosé that rouses the palate with waves of pure, clean flavor. Another might recall the ripe peach perfume pops from a frizzante Moscato d'Asti or a blast of sea salt in a sip of Muscadet.

So does freshness also come in red? It sure does, and it's a quality to seek out and appreciate in warmer weather.  

To this taster, fresh flavors in red wines are vibrant, pure and focused. A fresh-tasting Syrah unfurls berry-licious flavors seasoned by exotic perfumes that waft from a juicy basketful, plucked at the height of season. While a more developed Syrah may show a more nuanced berry profile, perhaps with aromas and tastes that recall a favorite aunt's fresh-baked pie, fruity freshness remains its calling card.   

Pinot Noir is known for fresh flavors of bright red or dark cherry fruit. Even when layered by mushroomy notes or floral aromatics, Pinot's energetic red fruits dance across the palate with vigor, sending out a wake-up call that has us smacking, sniffing and coming back for more.    

Italian Barbera is another fresh red wine with flavor traction worthy of more than just a summer fling.  Bright red cherry flavors streaked with clean minerality unleash a flavor-burst that not only satisfies the senses but also leaves the palate primed for another savory sip.  Despite 14% alcohol, the 2008 Vietti Barbera d'Asti Tre Vigne retains its muscular vitality. With a scent of earth after a sun-shower, the wine shows dimension that pairs well with grilled ahi tuna topped by a barely cooked sauce of chopped ripe tomatoes and black olives. Nearly raw, fresh—and gone.

More often than not, fresh-tasting notes shine brighter in wines that are lighter in oak, higher in acidity and lower in tannin and alcohol. These wines tend to feel more angular than round in the mouth. They're not the brooding wines we so enjoy in cooler weather, nor are they the heavily extracted fruit bombs that assert their place at the table and in the cellar, too.

With hotter-than-July August around the corner, give your palate a blast of freshness in the color of your choice, at least for a few more weeks.

Summer Reds

As thermometer-busting temperatures climb day into night, it's no exaggeration to call desert summers extreme. Adding insult to injury for red wine lovers is the thought of months in white-wine-and-rosé exile. Instead, take these tips for choosing summer reds to help keep cool at the dining table or poolside get-together.

Tame the tannins

Mmm, a beautifully charred steak with a tasty, tannic Cabernet Sauvignon. While that combo is a food match made in heaven in cooler weather, it's hardly so during the Hades heat of summer.

As much as beefy proteins mute Cabernet's mouth-puckering tannins, a drying mouthfeel is downright unpleasant in parched, hot weather. Save the Nebbiolo and age-worthy Cabs for autumn. Now's the time to switch gears and seek out lower-tannin reds instead. Think Pinot Noir, Dolcetto, Barbera, Valpolicella, Loire Cabernet Franc, Beaujolais, fruitier Merlot, Syrah and many Côte-du-Rhône blends. Still miss your Cab? Try cooler-climate Australian Cabernets that offer bold and juicy fruit with tannins that are less harsh. The fun-loving group at last night's food-and-wine tasting at Cooking with Class enjoyed the Four Sisters Cabernet from Central Victoria. Its currant and blackberry fruit laced with a hint of mint was lip-smacking delish, with not a dry mouth in the house.

                                                                                   

Similarly, at last month's summer wine dinner, the popular closer from half a world away was the Val de L'Ours 2008 by Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite). The famed house of Bordeaux purchased an abandoned estate in the Languedoc-Rousillon region of southern France in 1999, now replanted with many of the traditional Corbières grapes. This 75% Cabernet, 25% Syrah blend is vinified in traditional Bordeaux style yet approachable now, with aromas of anise, spice and dark berries and rounder tannins on the palate. Ripe flavors of plum, currants and dark cherry ride out with a peppery kick on the finish. Try this palate pleaser with steaks, barbecue, pizza and spicy pastas.

Watch the Weight

Stay ahead of the heavy, sinking feeling that comes with oppressive heat by choosing foods – and wines – that are lighter in weight, both in terms of body and alcohol content. Medium-bodied Pinot Noir does double-duty as a favorite low-tannin choice to make it ideal for a range of lighter summer food preparations. Pinot Noir goes especially well with foods that don't take well to tannins, as in lighter meats such as pork, veal and chicken, as well as most fish.

At our summer wine tasting, we served 2009 Pinot Noir by Block Nine, a winery expressly created in response to an American market pining for Pinot. The medium-bodied Pinot by this small California producer clocks in at only 13.5% alcohol. On the nose, it is fragrant with violets, strawberries and dark cherries.  Silky on the palate, the wine sends out cherry and cola flavors layered with a touch of earthiness and sandalwood. You'll want to bring on the mushroom, savory and woodsy dishes for this one, perhaps a cherry-sauced pork or fisherman's-style grilled salmon.

The Dashwood 2009 Pinot Noir savored at last night's tasting event hails from Marlborough, New Zealand, a site better known for Sauvignon Blanc and home to more than half of the country's vineyards. The Dashwood blend of Pinot lots from two Marlborough valleys is light on its feet, with bright cherry fruit, crisp minerality and gentle tannins. It made a tasty match for Chef Andie's potato-crusted salmon with pomegranate beurre rouge and 'cousotto,' her risotto-styled couscous creation with basil and goat cheese.

So go ahead and lighten up your red wine palate this summer. You won't miss the mouth-coating heaviness of fuller-bodied wines in stifling heat while you'll still enjoy a range of seductive aromas, delectable flavor profiles and the layered complexity red wine lovers adore. And, at less than $20 a bottle for these winners, you'll stay within your summer budget as well. The school's July food-and-wine tasting falls on Friday, the 22nd. See the online calendar, make your reservations or call for event information and wine availability: 760.777.1161.

Summer Wines

What makes a wine a winning partner for warm-weather foods? We tasted our way through four different answers to that $64,000 question at Friday's summer wine dinner at Cooking with Class. 

 

Turn down the heat

Choosing lower-alcohol wines is one way to keep summer heat in check. These wines don't feel as hot in the mouth as high-octane wines, a sensation you might enjoy by the fire in winter but not so much on a hot desert night. Stay cool with wines that clock in under 13 percent. If you have trouble finding lower-alcohol wines in your wine shop's domestic section, venture over to the Loire, northern Italy and Germany for more choices in the 11 to 12.5% range.

Leave oak in the forest

The fresher flavors and lighter weight of summer foods can make wines with overt oakiness seem heavy or clunky. While the toasty flavors imparted by oak can play up to the smoky flavors of barbecue and outdoor grilling, all that wood can clobber the palate. Instead, try lighter-oaked styles or blends with neutral-oak aged or unoaked lots in the mix. If you can't find clues to a wine's oak ageing on the label, ask your wine merchant. More Chardonnay producers are trumpeting their no-oak or less-oaked wines with label terms such as oak-free, unoaked, naked, virgin or references to steel or metal. Whites that are often unoaked include dry Muscat, Torrontés, Riesling, Albariño and most Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.

Take a wine vacation

Summer is a perfect time to sample the un-chardonnays of the white wine world. Lighter sauces and breezier preparations call out for wines with bright acidity, fresh fruit flavors, delicate or floral aromas and a solid core of minerality. White wines from cooler climates deliver the goods. Look again to the Loire Valley of France for whites that seem made for summer salads, shellfish and lighter meats, as in Muscadet, Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc. Gotta have red? Loire Cabernet Franc is a versatile match for picnic and warm-weather foods, including herbed vegetables and white meats, salmon and grilled ahi.

Soave from the Veneto region of northeastern Italy has made giant leaps in quality since it unleashed oceans of watery, thin wines last century. Labels that bear a classico designation on the label are good bets for elegance, lemony and mineral flavors, smooth texture and hint of almond on a clean finish. Further south, sharper Vermentino from Sardegna is a lip-smacking tart white that cries out for seafood and acid-based dressings.

Stateside, the cool northwest is producing whites that are big on value and flavor. Oregon Pinot Gris has just the right amount of weight and citrusy verve to pair well with summer vegetables, appetizers, fish, poultry and lighter meat dishes. Venture into Washington wines too – their Rieslings are getting better and better.

So what did we serve Friday? We began with Guy Saget Les Clissages d’Or 2009 Muscadet de Sèvre et Maine, a 100% Melon de Bourgogne lovely from the Loire. Aged on its lees for a lush, creamy texture, this Muscadet offers food-friendly refreshment with a salty tang. Adorned in les clissages d'or, the handwoven gold threading on the bottle, it was also the prettiest bottle of the night.  

For the second course, the nod went to Italy's Veneto and the Filippi 2008 Soave made from 100% Garganega. Its lemony freshness and medium body made it a lively pairing for Chef Andie's version of shrimp scampi with creamy polenta.

Next up, we'll tell you about warm-weather reds and the two that brought our summer wine dinner to a grand finale – one by a single-minded California newcomer and the other a surprising debut from southern France by a storied winemaker .

Tantalized by Torrontés

If the beauty of a wine's perfume makes you giddy, point your sniffer to Torrontés, the signature white wine of Argentina. Swirl a cool glass of Torrontés to breathe in a lei-stand of lofty scents, all tropical flowers and exotic fruits.

The 2009 Zolo pictured here made last summer's pool party all the more fun.

Ampelographers and grape geneticists have pegged the Torrontés grape as a cross between the Mission grape brought to the New World by the Spaniards and Muscat, specifically Muscat of Alexandria. Known for exotic, heady aromas of orange blossom, honeysuckle and jasmine, Muscat is perhaps the oldest wine grape used in modern wines. Versatile Muscat can be vinified into a wide range of wines, from delightful sparklers such as Moscato d'Asti to dry still wines (Botani from southern Spain is a favorite pick), off-dry and sweet versions, such as the honeyed Beaumes de Venise.

As a dry white wine, Argentine Torrontés makes a great warm-weather choice. Flowery aromatics typify Torrontés from higher elevations in northern Argentina's Salta province while Torrontés from more southern La Rioja can be richer in tropical fruit flavors. Both are low to moderate in acidity, which makes these lively wines delightful aperitifs or a breezy choice with lighter fare.  

For a small gathering of wine-savvy friends, we chose 2009 Torrontés from Bodega Colomé. Located in the mountainous Calchaquí Valley of northern Argentina, Bodegas Colomé is the country's oldest winery and, at 7,500 feet, one of the highest in the world. Now owned by Swiss financier Donald Hess, the location is so remote that Hess built schools, housing, a place of worship, roads, a medical facility and other structural elements to make the operation self-sufficient. Word is he bought it for a million dollars – and then spent ten times that amount to bring it online in a first-rate manner.

Despite a rocky start, Bodega Colomé is now known for a wide portfolio of outstanding wines. The 2009 Torrontés is crafted from hand-harvested grapes plucked from 30-to-60-year-old vines. Seductive floral aromatics give way to juicy nectarine and guava flavors. So easy to enjoy by itself, it will also go well with lightly spiced Asian dishes. Or, do as they do in Argentina and savor Torrontés with empanadas.

We treated another private party to Zolo 2010 Torrontés, this time at Cooking with Class in La Quinta. Made from lower-altitude 10-year-old vines in La Rioja, nearly halfway between Mendoza and Salta, grapes for Zolo pass through a pneumatic press at the winery's über-modern facility. This method employs a blanket of inert nitrogen to insulate grapes from exposure to oxygen and preserve vibrant floral aromatics. Although our guests were new to Torrontés, they were won over at first sip by Zolo's delicate scents and limey, tropical flavors accented by starfruit and papaya. Chef Andie played off the wine's exotic notes with a seared scallop creation finished with a tangy garlic-basil yogurt and avocado-mango crudo. Sound awesome? It was.

Try Torrontés at your next get-together. It's delectably different and sure to please any crowd – including the guys, in case you were wondering. Just don't keep it around too long. Torrontés is best consumed young, probably no more than two years or so after the vintage date. Get to know this Argentine beauty and tango your way to Torrontés all spring and summer long. Find Zolo at Cooking with Class and Bodega Colomé at wine shops around town.

Elizabeth Rose 2009 Rosé

Nothing says springtime like a refreshing glass of rosé. At a recent food and wine tasting at Cooking with Class, guests were spellbound by Elizabeth Rose 2009 Rosé. All eyes were riveted by the colorful elixir that gushed glassfuls of dark pink and magenta hues. And boy, did it deliver on the palate too, with taste buds shifting into high gear as the first sips went down.

Newcomers to this wine might mistake the gorgeous color and bold strawberry aromas as a sign of sweetness. Instead, this lip-smacking lovely finishes dry and crisp. Napa winemaker Kristi Koford uses grapes sourced from two certified organic vineyards in Yountville and Oakville to craft the Syrah-based Rhône-style blend. The cold soak and stainless steel fermentation yields a juicy sipper that bursts with fresh-tasting, ripe raspberry and strawberry fruit. Rosy to the end, it blossoms with warm spice and rhubarb tang on the finish.

And yes, there really is an Elizabeth Rose. The fetching label of this family-owned winery holds a story of tradition and pluck. A few years ago, this special rosé was created and named for the daughter of one of the winery founders to mark her 21^st birthday. As told to us, that red-headed young lady hails from a long line of flame-haired beauties, one being her beloved great-grandmother after whom she was named. The youngster loved all things red and rosy. Flush with youthful imagination, she would often sign her name Elizabeth Rose. Her bemused dad later interpreted this as Elizabeth Rosé. So, with a birthday that marked the end of a childhood era as fanciful Elizabeth Rose and an official passage into adulthood, the wine was given the name Elizabeth Rose Rosé in honor of both youthful exuberance and strong family bonds. 

Do like they do at Bonded Winery 9 and pair this wine with barbecue and a host of warm weather fare such as lightly spiced salads, white meats, fish and appetizers. Or, take a tip from Elizabeth Rose and drink it all year round, especially with seasonal watermelon salad for total refreshment.

Claim your screw-capped bottle for about $12 at Cooking with Class in La Quinta, behind the big Walgreen's off 48^th Avenue and Washington Street. Chances are good Chef Andie and I will share this springtime goodness at another Cooking with Class event but why wait?

Check out the April class schedule now posted online. A week from today on Friday, April 1^st is next month's food and wine tasting. Sign up today or call 760.777.1161 to stake your place before this popular event sells out again.

Bodegas Borsao 2008 Tres Picos Garnacha

Tres Picos 2008 Garnacha hails from Campo de Borja. Campo de what? Borja, the Spanish name for Borgia, the infamous Italian Renaissance family of Spanish heritage whose scandals gave nobility a bad name.

Reds rule in Campo de Borja, and none rules mightier than Garnacha. The region, recognized as a D. O. (Denominación de Orígen) in 1980 lies within Zaragoza province, southeast of La Rioja. Although it is home to only 17 wineries, Campo de Borja Garnacha casts a long shadow to fans of this spicy varietal.

Bodegas Borsao 2008 Tres Picos is made in a modern style, with rich, mouth-filling texture and plush flavors of blackberry and dark cherry fruit. Herb and spice notes unfurl cloves, pepper and anise followed by leather and sweet pipe tobacco. Over and above its seductive aromatics, the wine's greatest reward is its food-friendliness. Try it with grilled sweet Italian sausage and a dab of Walla Walla onion whole-grain mustard.

Garnacha goes by Grenache in France and many parts of the New World. Italians know it as Cannonau, a word taken from Sardinian dialect, and the place where the grape probably originated. Although Garnacha is known for high-yielding vines and ripe, alcoholic wines, the grapes grown for Tres Picos have it tough. Harvested from old vines that struggle in poor soil along rugged edges of hillside terrain, the meager yield of two tons per acre produces concentrated wines, expressive of terroir and layered with flavor and nuance. 

If you're warming up to Spanish wine, look for the name of Spanish importer Jorge Ordoñez on the label. More often than not, an Ordoñez pick lands a winner of uncommon wine goodness and value over many price points. Find this beauty at Palm Desert's LA Wine Company and Dan's Wine Shop for less than $15 a bottle.

The Closer: Smoking Loon 2008 Syrah

Thanks to all the Girlfriends who made last week's Wine Circle get-together such fun – with special thanks to Teri and ATEHO, her gorgeous place to shop for unique, tasteful gifts.

We closed out Spicy Reds with a quirky pick: Smoking Loon 2008 Syrah, a wine that weaves together the ripe berry fruit, pepper and spice that makes Syrah so seductive. I'd read about the wine on Tim Fish's blog for Wine Spectator in which Don Sebastiani, Jr., whose company produces Smoking Loon, made some strikingly candid remarks. Fish noted that his WS colleague James Laube gave the wine an 87 (which indicates a very good wine with "special qualities" in the Spectator's scoring system), leading Fish to ask what it takes to make a very good $8 bottle of wine.

So how does Sebastiani and Sons do it? In essence, they use a combination of science and shortcuts. The wine's color may get punched up by a tiny amount of the natural grape concentrate Mega Purple. How about some oak for toastiness, aging and tannin management? Smoking Loon gets the kiss of oak Syrah needs with oak staves rather than logging time in expensive, space-demanding barrels. OK, no surprises there but few winemakers are inclined to talk about those things, no less to a publication with the reach of Wine Spectator.

The science behind the Smoking Loon Syrah involves micro-oxygenation or "micro-ox," a technique that introduces small, controlled amounts of oxygen into the wine during fermentation or aging. Micro-ox can help soften tannins, weave together a wine's flavors or give winemakers more precise control over the wine's aging. You might liken it to using an aerator on a mega-scale.

Micro-ox has been around for a while. About five years after micro-ox was developed in 1991 by a scientist working with Tannat, an exceedingly tannic varietal, the European Commission allowed for its use in winemaking. You may remember it from the movie Mondovino (2004), in which influential globe-trotting enologist Michel Rolland suggests it to some winemaking clients. Today, micro-ox is used worldwide, from Bordeaux to Chile.

So that's how Smoking Loon was chosen as the closer. Beyond its sure-to-please flavors, it also fulfills an "interest quotient" for added instructional value worth sharing. Loon is tasty, varietally correct, inexpensive and locally available ($6.99 at Trader Joe's and even less at bigger box stores). It earned a respectable score – which carries weight whether we want to think so or not – and carried a good back-story. While my personal Syrah preferences lean to K Vintners, Rusack, Alban, Andrew Murray and Cayuse (if I can ever get my hands on it again), the TJ wine won out with a good story. Come to think of it, those other wines have some pretty remarkable stories too. Join us next time and we'll uncover some more.