It was the perfect day for a crisp white wine. Or so I thought. As I drove through West Hollywood in the ninety degree heat I was looking forward to the tasting event at Fred Segel where I would sip on something light and crisp or perhaps smooth and dry. Though I don’t consider myself a connoisseur of wines, I know what I like and felt reasonably assured that a classy establishment like the Mauro Cafe would likely be serving something up to my standards.
The first order of business upon arriving was to sample the appetizers prepared by Executive Chef, Sergio Corbia I quickly loaded up on several varieties of cheese, nibbled on asparagus wrapped in eggplant and crunched on a cracker topped with crab meat and wasabi caviar. Next I elbowed my way through a quintet of middle-aged blondes to the table for some 2006 Sauvignon Blanc from Cole Bailey Vineyards. The label informed me I was drinking not just any Sauvignon Blanc but Sesquipedalian Sauvignon Blanc. You may be wondering, as I was, what a Sesquipedalian is. Luckily the vintners had come prepared with an explanation. Sesquipedalian: a sophistical rhetorician inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, i.e., someone who uses long fancy words when simple words will do. Do you see where this is going? Yes, that’s right, a Sesquipedalian is a wine taster.
Wine tasting is famously a favorite pastime of the pretentious, the ponderous and the verbose. In the world of wine tasting, no adjective is too ambitious, no analogy too far-fetched. As I sipped, talent manager and wine taster, BT Taylor told me he liked to compare wines to perfumes. The Dark Horse Cab is Chanel number nineteen, he informed me, in all seriousness.
Cole Bailey Vineyards owners and growers, Bob Anderson and Jennifer Malloy Anderson don’t shy from this reputation, but rather embrace it fully and completely. Bob and Jennifer can sesquipedal with the best of them. Jennifer writes wonderfully florid, knowingly prolix prose for each label and as I read her exuberant writing it occurred to me – it wasn’t the perfect day for a crisp white wine. It was the perfect day for a Sauvignon Blanc with a bouquet of undulating sugarcane, equitable on the palate, alluding to lemongrass and lilting in the finish. That is to say, if I wanted to do this right, I was going to have to be a little more creative with my descriptions.
The wonderful thing about wine tasting is that there is no right or wrong. Some will try to lead you to believe otherwise, but ultimately it all comes down to personal taste, and personal taste is subjective. If you think your Syrah tastes like leather, so be it, and if you happen to like the taste of leather, congratulations. That was the attitude I was bringing to this event, and despite the superior knowledge and advanced experience of some of the other tasters in attendance, the genial atmosphere was supportive of such an attitude. And even though the Malloy’s (perhaps tongue-in-cheek) stated mission is to "target the aficionado and preserve the elitist atmosphere of the high-end world of wine", the 2005 Sesquipedalian Sauvignon Blanc was priced at a very reasonable $18 a bottle.
I decided not to hold back. I would taste what I would taste and let the big words roll.
I moved on to sample the Sauvignon Blanc from Forth Vineyards. Jann Forth, owner and winemaker (who partners with her husband, Gerry) told me that their Sonoma County Dry Creek Valley wines are sustainably and organically farmed. Instead of gas guzzling lawnmowers they use sheep to keep their grass trim and tidy. When I asked her if there were any drawbacks to going organic she thought for a moment and answered, "No. Fifty years ago everything was organic. We just went back to the way things were. It worked for three thousand years and it works now."
I sipped and let my imagination do the tasting. It was aromatically elusive but magnanimous to the tongue, insinuating apple and oak. The overall experience was like sliding into cool satin sheets on a balmy summer night. This lovely 2006 Sauvignon Blanc from Mendocino County goes for $17 a bottle.
Unfortunately, Etienne C. Terlinden, of Cordon was not on hand to pour his selection of wines due to a prior engagement– something about a super top secret government mission. No joke: Etienne is a Navy SEAL. He’s also popularly known as the winemaking community’s #1 hunk. I was disappointed not to meet this enigmatic SEAL/Winemaker/Hunk, but happy to discover his SB to be tangy, tart and refreshing, Nordic in substance yet Costa del Sol in spirit. The 2005 Sauvignon Blanc is priced to sell at $15 a bottle.
Next, Jeff White, Owner of Ovene Winery poured me his SB (as I took to calling the varietal as we became more intimate). Since the portions were generous and I am generally a lightweight, I was by now beginning to feel some effect of the fermented fruit and sensed in this particular glass something as unlikely as a Rose Arbor start and a Marble Arch denouement. I just went with it. There was a sweet redolence of lemon and melon, and the sip was gently Saharan on the palate. Ovene Winery, Inc. was founded in March 2004, but Jeff and his wife Genni’s experience with wine production goes back far before that. They began making wine in their garage in 1986 and would enlist friends and neighbors to help them crush the grapes "Lucy style", which resulted in purple footprints down the driveway. The Winery is dedicated to Jeff’s Grandmother, Merthel Ovene McConnel. Groovy Granny, as she was known, provided support and encouragement for their burgeoning business and passed away just after the White’s became licensed winemakers. A bottle of the 05 Sauvignon Blanc is $15.
It was a Monday night, so I’d intended to sample just the whites but was suddenly inspired to throw caution to the wind and indulge in the other color. I started with the Dark Horse Zinfandel which was a bricolage of berry flavors and furtive notes of nutmeg, galvanic as a swift kick to the gluteus. The Dark Horse Winery is owned by self-described cowboy Mike Loykasek, another word-lover, who puts a mini western novel on the back of every bottle. The Zinfandel grapes are harvested from a hillside near blackberry and cherry patches, and in the words of the cowboy himself, "The flavors just never finish, like the nag in a horse race. This wine pairs well with whatever’s on the chuck wagon." The 2004 Zin, from Dry Creek Valley goes for $28 bottle.
At some point I stopped taking notes, waxing palaverous and deigned to enjoy my wine like a layman– mindlessly, dizzily, delightedly. Okay so maybe I threw out an "Ooh, mossy," or "Do I taste white chocolate and abstruse sophistication?" here and there, but it was just for my own amusement. What kind of writer would I be if I didn’t have a little fun with my adjectives? It was indeed the perfect evening for an effulgent Cabernet with a nose of crepuscular dew and the implication of kismet and clove.
Links:
