Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Etude Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford (Napa Valley) 2004

Etude is fast becoming one of my favorite California wineries, mainly because of their brilliant Cabernets. Indeed, if you held a gun to my head, I’d confess that Etude has overtaken Silver Oak, Duckhhorn, Ridge, and Behrens & Hitchcock, which used to be my personal top California red wine sources (if you want me to explore the question of whether, say, Screaming Eagle should be at the top of my pantheon, I’d be glad to do so ... on your dime).

Etude’s base Cabernet is blended from multiple Napa vineyards in Rutherford, Oakville, St. Helena, and Calistoga. Being a California chauvinist, blending wines from multiple terroirs to produce a consistent result dosn’t offend my sensibilities the way it would a French terroirist. Having said that, however, I do believe that terroir matters even in the Golden State.

In 2004, Etude bottled a mere 12 barrels of Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from the Cohn and Morisoli Vineyards in the Rutherford AVA.  Is there any of the famous Rutherford dust in this wine? I don’t taste it yet, but in my experience the dusty element becomes more pronounced as Rutherford Cabs age.

Instead, I taste and smell an intensely fruity wine suggesting blackberry, black currant, cassis, mocha java, and some well integrated smoke, toast, and vanilla from the oak in which it doubtless aged.

Try to find some of this wine (I scored a half case). Try some now, but also lay it down for 15-25 years. It’s going to be a great wine that keeps getting better for a very long time. Grade: A

Italian Wine Woes

Via Drudge (of all places):

Italian authorities are investigating incidents of adulterated wine, prompting the government on Friday to play down fears of another health scare like the one that hit mozzarella cheese last week. A news magazine revealed that police were investigating the cheap end of the market for adding harmful chemicals into wine.

... Police in the far north and south of Italy found evidence that cheap wine was being cut with sugar and sulphuric and hydrochloric acid, L’Espresso said.

Two thoughts. (1) I’ve never been a fan of cheap Italian wine, for which I’m now grateful. For one thing, this isn’t the first time low-end Italian producers were found to have adulterated their wines. (2) Like the rest of the EU, Italy is sitting on a lake of surplus wine. So the problem can’t be that they need more wine. Presumably they were trying to tweak wines that were low in alcohol and acids to “improve” the flavor. But with “sulphuric and hydrochloric acid”?

From the same report:

In a separate investigation at the luxury end, 600,000 bottles of vintage Brunello di Montalcino have been seized by investigators who suspect winemakers used grapes other than Sangiovese, the only ingredient allowed in the Tuscan wine, a favourite of U.S. connoisseurs, L’Espresso magazine reported.

This is not a health issue, so much as an image issue. Personally, however, I’m not hung up on the idiocies of EU wine rules. As a Californian, blending varietals is old hat. If a producer thinks he can improve his blend by adding other grapes, I say “have at it.” Where traditionalists see fraud, I see civil disobedience.

Decoy (Napa Valley) 2000

For a second wine (Duckhorn’s) and a middling vintage, this a pretty decent bottle of wine. It’s a blend of 57% Cabernet Franc, 23% Petit Verdot, and 20% Merlot. There’s a whiff of VA when the bottle is opened, but that mostly blows off with some breathing time.  Red currant, plum, mocha java, soy sauce, olives, and a dash of balsamic vinegar (that VA trace). Grade: B-

Honig Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley) 2005

A biggish wine, even by Napa Cab standards. Tons of forward fruit, alcohol, tannins, and acids. Black currant, plum, and black cherry. Grade: B+

Justin Justification (Paso Robles) 2002

This blend of 76% Cabernet Franc and 24% Merlot is vinified in the style of a good St Emilion rather than a Chinon. It offers an interesting mix of gooseberry, raspberry, plums, and oriental spices, There is sufficient structure to justify cellaring through 2014 or so. Grade: B+

Apparently, I liked it better in 10/2005, while in 1/2005 I thought it didn’t have the stuffing for extended aging. Based on this bottle, however, I’ve changed my mind about its aging potential.

Slow Cooker Beef Stew in a Goulash Style

• 1 ½ pounds beef chuck, cut into 1-inch cubes


• ½ cup all-purpose flour


• 1 tablespoon salt


• 1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning


• 1 teaspoon black pepper


• 1 tablespoon olive oil


• ½ large onion, sliced thin into long strips


• 1 large carrot, sliced thinly on the bias


• 1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and sliced thinly into long strips


• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ teaspoon salt


• 1 tablespoon paprika


• ½ tablespoon dried oregano


• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper


• 2 tablespoons tomato paste


• 2 tablspoons ketchup


• 1 cup low sodium beef broth


• 1 cup organic cranberry pomegranate juice blend


• 1 cup dry red wine


• ½ medium green cabbage, cleaned, cored, and cut into long thin strips


• creme fraiche

Combine broth and fruit juice in a medium slow cooker set on high.

Combine flour, salt, pepper, and Old Bay in a 1-gallon plastic zip-top bag. Shake well to mix. Add the beef and shake well to coat. Remove beef, shaking off excess flour.

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium high heat until almost smoking. Add beef in batches, so that the pieces don’t touch each other. Saute until well-browned on all sides. Repeat until all beef is seared. Drain beef pieces briefly on paper towels. Add beef to slow cooker.

In the same skillet, add a dash more olive oil and reheat pan. When nearly smoking, add onion, bell pepper, and carrot. Add salt. Cook until veggies are lightly browned on edges and starting to soften. Add garlic, paprika, oregano, and cayenne pepper. Cook 1 minute. Add tomato paste and ketchup. Cook one minute. Add red wine to pan, bring to a boil and cook 1 minute while using a wooden spoon to scrape up any brown bits on the skillet surface. Pour mixture into slow cooker.

Cook on high two hours. Reduce heat to low. Cook an additional 4-6 hours, depending on how tender you want the beef.

At the half way point, add cabbage.

About 20 minutes before serving, spoon out about ½ cup of the broth into a small bowl. Stir in about ¼ cup of creme fraiche. Mix well and pour back into slow cooker.

Serve with egg noodles. Top with a dollop of creme fraiche.

If the sauce is too soupy for your taste, you can thicken it with a little cornstrach or arrowroot dissolved in cold water.

You could serve a lot of wines successfully with this meal. A big, full-bodied white would work provided it’s not too buttery or oaky. A light-bodied, acidic red wine would provide an interesting contrast. My preference, however, would be a medium-bodied dry red from some of the classic Bordeaux varieties. Braised beef, bell pepper, and spices suggest a Cabernet or Merlot to my palate. Hence, a Cab Franc-based meritage blend was my choice. It worked well.

Decoy (Napa Valley) 2002

Decoy is Duckhorn’s second wine. In 2002, it blended the three main Bordeaux varieties: Cabernet Sauvignon (53%), Merlot (26%), and Cabernet Franc (21%), all sourced from Napa Valley vineyards. When last noted in April 2005, I suggested that there’s “enough tannin on the finish to justify holding on to a bottle or two to see how it does medium term.” I’d say the medium term is over. It’s a soft, pleasant wine with good black cherry and currant flavors. But it’s coming up on its expiration date real fast. There’s a hint of VA on the finish that suggests you need to drink it up. Decant it off the moderate sediment and let it breathe for a while because there’s something a little odd when it’s first opened. Grade: B+

Buying Wine in Tennessee

I’m just back from a business trip to Nashville, where my hosts took me to dinner at the Sunset Grill, which offers half price wine on the weekends. We had a lovely dinner and a very good bottle of wine (Geyser Peak, more later). At dinner, my hosts bemoaned the state of the wine retail industry in Tennessee. Apparently, the state legislature is pretty much in the pocket of an unholy alliance between the big liquour wholesalers and the Baptists (a major problem in much of the Bible belt). So I was very interested to see a report on a possible breakthrough in Tennessee:

Controversy has erupted in Tennessee over a new bill that would allow direct-to-consumer wine shipping, as the state’s wholesalers have attempted to derail the legislation’s passage by launching a campaign ostensibly to stop teen drinking. Their move has prompted the bill’s sponsor to call the matter before the state ethics commission to investigate potentially illegal lobbying. ...

The bill would require any winery or retailer to buy a $100 license from the state, and ship no more than two cases of wine annually to any Tennessean of legal drinking age. Out-of-state producers and retailers would have to report annually on what they sold to whom, and pay any appropriate taxes to the state. Despite past failures of similar bills, Jackson thinks SB 1977 has potential to pass this time around because his colleagues have seen how similar laws have worked in other states, and generated revenue for the government. “The bill is not facing an economic argument—it just comes down to a policy decision.”

And therein lies the problem for Jackson’s bill. Shortly after he introduced the legislation, the state’s wholesalers began a campaign to rally support against the bill. Wine wholesalers generally oppose direct shipping since sales from wineries to consumers cut the wholesalers out of the distribution process and, therefore, the profits. Wholesalers also oppose sales from out-of-state retailers since a wholesaler in a different state earned a portion of the sale, not a wholesaler in the state in which the wine was delivered. According to Jackson, Tennesseans began receiving direct-mail pieces aimed at drumming up public opposition, and a website called stopteendrinkingtn.org was launched, alleging that the bill would allow for greater access to alcohol by minors.

“That’s not what the bill would do, and that’s not what this law has done in other states,” said Jackson. “But that has become the point of attack.”

That attack, Jackson argues, is illegal under Tennessee law. Jackson wrote a letter to the state’s ethics commission, a copy of which was also posted online by the Knoxville News Sentinel. In it, Jackson alleges that the anti-teen-drinking website was launched by Seigenthaler Public Relations, a firm working on behalf of the state’s liquor wholesalers. “The law would require the wholesalers to do a filing indicating that they are an employer of a lobbyist,” said Jackson. “And that would require a filing by the PR firm, disclosing their activities.” ...

Jackson believes that if the bill gets to a floor vote, it’ll pass, but it first has to get through the senate’s commerce committee which, historically, has supported the wholesalers, he said.

“I wish I could take every member of the [commerce] committee down to these wineries—I have a few in my district and in counties surrounding my district—and talk with the families that are in this business and the hopes they have for it, and how much sweat and toil they put into trying to grow the very best grapes and make a quality product, and I think then they would understand,” Jackson said. “When they hear from these families how important this bill is to their future, and then you see the effect of the wholesalers, it doesn’t affect them whatsoever. It’s less than a decimal point on their bottom line.”

I’ll keep my fingers crossed for my wine loving friends in Tennessee, but the big booze boys and the Baptists are a tough tag team to beat.