Disgorgement in days of yore

Champagne is mysterious. That is one of its beauties. And yet, one mystery deserves clarification: Wine connoisseurs who take great care in consuming wine at the right time need to know about disgorgement of sparkling wine and how its date provides about understanding of the flavors inside the bottle. If you have a special bottle in mind for Valentine’s Day and are thirsty for details of another vital element of your favorite bubbly, read on.

Disgorgement is the process where the post-fermentation yeast deposit is removed from a bottle of sparkling wine. Before this process takes place, the wine ages in the bottle under the influence of this deposit, guarding it from oxidation. The longer the yeast stays in contact with the wine, the greater the influence of “bready” or “yeasty” flavors.  Once a bottle of wine is disgorged, it matures faster, gaining more complexity and depth with time. Knowing the date of this process informs which evolutionary stage the wine is at.

Yeast sediment in a pre-disgorged Champagne

Champagne maker extraordinaire Bruno Paillard prefers to use the term “operation” rather than disgorgement because he feels that it is the equivalent of surgery. Just as doctors will tailor a post-surgery resting period, Champagne producers also choose a range of time to allow their precious bottles to recover from the traumatic process. Certain producers prescribe a resting period of 3-6 months, while others will wait 1-3 years before releasing the wine. The latter believe that this period must be long enough for the wine to fully express the benefit of the extended yeast maturation. Even though the Champenoise advise that quality Champagnes can still be delicious (even if disgorged as long as twenty years) the best chance of opening the right bottle at the right time is to become familiar with the house or producer’s style and the flavor stages of the wine’s life.

Not all bottles have this information; however, more and more producers and sommeliers are placing these disgorgement date on their labels and wine lists in order to better inform consumers.

Disgorgement date

“Many people think champagne does not age,” Paillard comments, “simply because that has been the dominant message for decades. It’s another story when they are given the chance to discover the effects of post-disgorgement maturation. But it takes time to change habits and beliefs.”  These changes are in no way meant to confuse but to provide a better understanding and in turn, further enjoyment.

Grilled Oysters with Spicy Garlic Butter

This butter works the best when it’s prepared ahead. Let it soften at room temperature, then season it, place it in plastic wrap, and roll it into a tight cylinder. Then chill it until it’s hard. When it’s chilled, it’s easy to cut the spicy butter into disks to top each oyster just before grilling. You can also use this seasoned butter on just about everything, from pasta to sautéed shrimp.

1 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon fresh chives, chopped

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, chopped

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

2 dozen oysters, shucked and left on the half shell

1. Beat the butter with the garlic, pepper flakes, chives, thyme, and lemon juice in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon or in the bowl of a food processor until well combined.

2. Using a rubber spatula, mound butter onto a wide sheet of plastic wrap. Drape one of the wide ends of the plastic wrap over the butter, then roll the butter into a cylinder about 1 inch in diameter and twist ends tightly. Refrigerate butter until hard.

3. Prepare a charcoal or gas grill. Unwrap the spicy butter and slice it into disks about ½ inch thick. Put a disk of butter on each oyster, then put the oysters butter side updirectly over the hot coals on the grill. Grill the oysters only until they start to curl and bubble around the edges and the butter melts. Serve them hot!

Once you have these hot off the grill, your beer of choice could always work–especially for this weekend’s Superbowl game.  If your palate is geared towards the vino, then my suggestions would be a Sauvignon Blanc, Chablis or Champagne.  Some ideas on the bubbly side from our IWM wine experts are Hubert Paulet Cuvee Risleus’ Brut Premier Cru or Billecart-Salmon Extra Brut NV.  So serve up your favorite drink, gather a group of friends around the grill and enjoy!

Il Palazzone's Sangiovese vines under a glowering sky.

Sangiovese is the greatest grape in the world. I realize that’s a pretty bold statement. In Italy alone there are thousands of different grape varieties, not to mention everything that’s growing in France, Spain, Germany, North and South America, the various lands down under, and everywhere else. Still, I stand behind my assertion. Sangiovese is a remarkably flexible grape. It can be made into precocious styles like Chianti (though one of my favorite wineslast year was a serious vintage Chianti) or more cellar-worthy wines like Brunello.  Some of the best vintage wine I have had has been made with the Sangiovese grape, and this variety can hang with the best. Let’s take a look at some popular varieties and see why they aren’t as special as Sangiovese.  Cab, Merlot, Pinot, Syrah, Grenache, Chardonnay, Sauv Blanc, Chenin Blanc can essentially be planted anywhere. From New Zealand to Cali, Germany, and South Africa, these varieties exist abundantly.  Even though these grapes find their homeland in France, they can grow very well in many different countries–these grapes essentially act as blank canvases so that the winemaker can paint his or her picture. This is not the case for Sangiovese. Sangiovese, like many other indigenous Italian grape varieties, can really only be grown in their place of origin; for Sangiovese that would be Tuscany.  Unlike Cab and Merlot and other popular grapes, Sangiovese is an extremely difficult grape to grow correctly.  It grows prolifically, buds early, ripens late, and it possesses a thin skin, a light body, rough tannins and high acidity.  This will normally spell disaster for most wines.  Trying to manage all of these deficiencies is quite difficult—for the winemaker, it’s like juggling a kitten, a chainsaw, a raw egg and a bowling ball and not ending up with a mess.

Fontodi's Sangiovese vines under a bright Tuscan sky.

Not only do you need an accomplished winemaker, you also need the right terroir. Somewhere with nice elevation, poor soils and ventilation combined with a variances between day and night temperatures is ideal. Elevation provides warm days and cool nights and higher climes will also mean more breeze. A good breeze both gives good air circulation and prevents mold and rot. Poor soils work to counteract the fecundity of Sangiovese, and they lend character to the fruit. Sunshine gives enough heat for the tannins never ripen and the sugars to develop, while the acidity remains high. It’s tough to find all of these points holding hands and working together—except in Tuscany. Now don’t get me wrong; you can find outcrops of Sangiovese in America, but they are few and far between.  The climate isn’t the same (too hot) and the soils just don’t do this grape justice.  You will never see Sangiovese grown in France, Germany, Spain and the rest, which is why it is so special. That and the fact that it makes an incredibly delicious wine that marries fruit with structure, age-worthiness with immediate satisfaction, and fun with finesse. Here are some Sangiovese varietal wines that I’m really enjoying right now: 2008 Fontodi Chianti Classico 2006 San Giusto a Rentanano Chianti Classico “Baroncole” 2004 Castiglion del Bosco Brunello di Montalcino 2006 Il Macchione Vino Nobile di Montepulciano

Sassicaia’s Piero Incisa della Rocchetta and his skillful team know how to make extraordinary wines—no matter where he is.  Bodega Chacra’s vineyards are located in the Rio Negro Valley of Northern Patagonia about equidistant east to west from the Atlantic to the Andes. This wine region has the pristine air, yielding a tremendous luminosity of sunlight for the grapes.  Biodynamically made, the wines are as natural and pure as winemaking gets, and it is most certainly evident in the glass.

The 2010 Barda (meaning ridge) is beautiful, vivacious, clean, and pure–and a steal at $26.  It shows a light ruby color in the glass, a light yet intriguing nose with violets and delicate red fruit, and a clean surprisingly long finish.  The wine matched the gorgeous afternoon perfectly.

On one of his visits, Piero Incisa della Rocchetta taught our staff to reserve a few drops of wine at the end of each glass, swirl around, and take in a huge whiff capturing the essence of the wine; even in a nearly empty glass, this wine smells beautiful.  At a low alcohol percentage of 12.8, this Barda is very enjoyable on its own (especially on a day like Saturday); if enjoying with food, I would recommend an array of wild mushrooms sautéed lightly with a little butter and a tiny bit of herbs, or perhaps a really fresh salad.  I know that we are nowhere near out of winter’s woods, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable to see a preview of spring, helped by this pure, fresh, and totally enjoyable Pinot Noir.

It is, after all, the third child in Piemonte’s holy grape trinity. Dolcetto seems to stand in the shadow of the region’s champion grape Nebbiolo, the grape responsible for the noble Barolo, and Barbaresco, the populist queen to Barolo’s king. In a global market pockmarked with trends, there seems to be not enough room for Dolcetto to share in Piedmont’s glory. And yet, Dolcetto–a grape more acidic and thus more food-friendly than its name suggests–packs a dark purple punch of black cherries, black plums, black raspberries licorice and spice. It makes a special wine.

I’d like to help give Dolcetto a shot at its own fifteen minutes—and hopefully longer. I’m not alone. The recent Huffington Post piece “A Grape That Could Use Some Love: Dolcetto” suggests that people are beginning to dig this little gem from Piedmont. Even though non-Italians have overlooked Dolcetto’s potential, the best producers of Piedmont have not. Ruggeri Corsini makes an approachable and lovely rendition that can be enjoyed daily; Sandrone and Aldo Conterno both make world-class contemporary interpretations; and the classics style is upheld by greats like Bartolo Mascarello, who makes Dolcetto like it has always been made. And these Dolcettos are all great-tasting, food-happy, entry-level value wines, as well as coming from iconic producers.

Each style offers something new according to the typicity of its estate and the style of the producer, but this variety helps to underscore the range of options available to drinkers curious enough to explore. Open your minds, hearts, and glasses to this underappreciated sweetheart. Its subtle fruits will entertain your palate with new flavors that you never knew you loved.

One point of etiquette is the gateway to enjoying a bottle of wine, the first step in making it all happen: uncorking. Too many times I’ve heard the unseemly sound of a large “POP” as someone across a room opens a bottle of wine. Sparkling or not, the opening of a bottle of wine should make no more than the sound of a whisper. There’s the rule, now a couple of reasons.

The uniform is optional.

Some may associate Champagne’s loud cracking pop with celebration and with good times. Beyond some festive Sabrage (the technique for opening a bottle of Champagne with a saber) on New Year’s, this kind of demonstration is problematic. Think of it this way: you want your sparkling wine to be as sparkling as possible. That loud pop is the sound of gas escaping the bottle, leaving less to carbonate the liquid. Also, and perhaps worse, some good wine usually escapes with that gas. If opening a bottle of sparkling has never taken you a touch of muscle (a touch more if you’re a weakling like myself), you may be doing it improperly. Take off the cage; wrap the cork in a cloth; hold the cork firmly; then turn the bottle (not the cork) until release. The cork needs a good deal of pressure to keep it from popping off prematurely. Practice makes perfect, and the more practice you require, the more wine you get to drink.

Classic for a reason.

Uncorking red wine runs somewhere along the same lines. Yanking a cork out with all the force you can muster sucks the air in the bottle out of the neck too quickly, thus greatly disturbing the wine. Imagine you’re uncorking something old and wonderful, say a Giacomo Conterno Barolo Monfortino Riserva 1978, that you or anyone else has taken great care to keep in proper conditions. With one quick move, you could completely disrupt a sleeping giant, sending sediment to roam freely about the bottle. This is why I always like to use a standard waiter’s wine key with a double hinge. A corkscrew like this will typically pull the cork out to just the point where you can easily wiggle out the end with very little struggle. No matter what the tool, use the “wiggle” method to ease the cork out, rather than yank.

It’s a lot of pomp and circumstance, but as we well know, winemaking is an art form. I like to honor that with a little subtle artwork of my own—in seamlessly uncorking a bottle with nary but a hiss of air. It feels better when you know you’re doing right by those who put their sweat and tears into that bottle. Go ahead, grab that precious bottle you’ve got lying around and give it a try.

Opening the bottle, I wasn’t looking to be surprised by this wine; I just wanted something pleasant and relatively easy to enjoy.  When I sipped the preliminary taste, I was stunned at how bright and fresh this wine was. 2009 was generally classified as a rather opulent vintage among the great Chardonnay vineyards in Burgundy, and a year that produced wines with riper, more abundant fruit tones, but this wine stunned with minerality and focus.  Higher acid supports layers upon layers of bright Meyer lemon, a citrus that’s uncharacteristic for 2009, and the mid-palate sings with bright minerality. I was knocked out of my chair; there was definitely no subtlety here.

Electric, yet poised, focused and refined, this ’09 from Simon Bize was wonderful choice. And next time you reach for your bottle of rouge, or lager, think different.

But while some sea changes are big, profound, ineffable and viscera-deep, not all of them are. Some of these changes have appeared in the ephemera of my everyday life. They’re tiny changes, but they’re there, and being there, every day, it’s kind of like carrying my travel and my time in other lands with me.

Espresso: Before I went to Italy, I drank American coffee. I had a French press, and I used it daily. I drank giant cups of coffee, early and often. After returning from Italy, I now own two espresso makers (of different sizes) and all I drink is espresso. Ever. The idea of giant cups of coffee is both anathema and a little bit gross. However, I still often do add some cream. Sue me; I’m not a purist.

Cheese: When I was living in Camogli, a friend came to visit me at lunchtime, determined to feed me (I often get so immersed in writing that I forget to eat; Italians find this troubling. I also often eat by myself; Italians find this completely upsetting). He asked me if I had any Parmesan. “What do you think I am?” I asked, “a cretin? Of course I do.” I still do, always. One cannot properly live without Parmesan.

Olive Oil: I returned to Italy in late October, and the moment that Il Palazzone’s Laura Gray met me at the train station, she handed me a bottle of 2011 olive oil that the estate had pressed just a week earlier. I am olive oil spoiled. Bad olive oil makes baby kittens weep and then gnash their tiny pointy teeth and rent their darling fur. I’m not going to go as far as Gianfranco Soldera and carry olive oil with me to restaurants (though if I made my own as he does, I might), but I’ve considered it.

Wine: My palate has changed, irrevocably. I can’t say I’m entirely happy about it, either. In many ways, I wish I were still able to drink big, manipulated, “International” wines, but they just taste to me, in a word, purple. I can’t do it. If I’m somewhere and the wine isn’t good, I drink beer or whisky. I’d rather drink bad beer than bad wine, and trust me when this is a giant shift in worldview.

Pleasure: Americans are really good with being entertained. We are a people who wrote the book, then wrote the film treatment, then wrote the screenplay, then got a producer, and then filmed a big-budget movie on entertainment. We are not, however, particularly great with pleasure. Italians have that whole pleasure thing nailed. It’s one of the aspects of the culture that has drawn non-Italians for centuries—this sense that upon entering Italy, you get a big blank check for pleasure, which you get to spend however you like. I try to remember this pleasure tenet, to approach my life not searching for entertainment, which is merely a nice word for escapism, but to approach my life aware of opportunities for pleasure, which is to say inhabiting the time with full-body awareness. It’s a thing, but it’s good.

It can be very easy for an expatriate to miss all of the symbolism that Chinese New Year customs entail, so I’d like to share a few that I’ve learned. For fans of delicious homonyms and symbolic cuisine, I present a brief introduction to traditional Chinese New Year dining:

Yau Yu – A fish dish, as the pronunciation is similar to saying that you will have money remaining.

Fat Choy – AKA Black Moss, it looks a bit like chest hair, but symbolizes wealth in its pronunciation. In Hong Kong we wish each other Kung Hei Fat Choi for prosperity in the New Year.

Ho See – Dried Oysters, pronounced the same as an expression for ‘good business.’  Thus the dish Ho See Fat Choy encourages good business in the New Year.

Nian Gao – A glutinous ‘year cake’ whose pronunciation also sounds like ‘high year.’  Eating nian gao is for hopes of promotion and increased fortune. Nian Gao from Guangdong is generally sweeter than that of Shanghai.

Tang Yuan – Sweet dumplings enjoyed at the end of the meal as the name also means ‘the whole family can gather all the time in harmony.’

In terms of wine, like all things CNY, we’ll prefer the color red. Many enjoy the opportunity for Rosé sparkling wines as well. Regardless, the opportunity to celebrate togetherness and good wishes for family have our fair Special Administrative Region buzzing with the kind of positive energy that one truly has to visit Hong Kong to appreciate.

One behalf of IWM Hong Kong, dear reader, I wish you Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Decanting, in its purest form, should be executed for mature big red wines that will “throw” sediment, which is to say that there is matter in the bottle that has separated from the liquid and can be removed by carefully and slowly pouring the wine into a decanter. Using a light source underneath the bottle allows the pourer to see when the sediment is moving into the liquid, and the pourer should stop decanting at the point when he or she can see the sediment approaching the neck of the bottle. If there is a desire to get every drop of liquid out, the pourer can filter the remaining wine into a separate glass.

This method of decanting had been the traditional method of decanting over the years.  However, both the method and the market has changed. For a long time the fine wine market was enjoyed by a very small group of individuals who had well-stocked cellars that enabled them to drink mature wines. Today wine has become a part of everyone’s culture. And the dynamic is very different.

In the US today 80% of wine is consumed within 48 hours of purchase, and 98% within six months. The bottles are consumed in their youth, before they have had an opportunity to mature. Here the process of decanting is executed to aerate the wine, not to remove sediment. Fortunately the wine community has come to understand the benefits of aeration. A group that was once somewhat divided between a traditional sediment-separating approach and a contemporary aeration approach has reached an accord. We decant.  We open bottles ahead of time, double decant and some even garishly violently decant (which is where most controversy springs from today).  Most young wines will not be hurt by oxygenation over a short period of time, and many will benefit. Perhaps our reference point should be changed all together. Perhaps the question should be: “Which wines shouldn’t be decanted?”

There is a very simple answer. Most sparkling wines should be consumed out of the original vessel to maintain their effervescence (but some Grower Champagnes challenge this conventional wisdom).  Older vintages or delicate wines should always be treated with reverence. And among more esoteric wines, there will be bottle variation that will require attention to the unique state of that vessel and may very well need to be handled as little as possible.

At the end of the day, most enthusiastic wine drinkers just want to know if they can get out their new Riedel decanter with the crystal aerator and watch the show. They might even want the sommelier to make the experience a bit more special.   The question is should I tumble that young wine? Yes, you should. The presentation is always more thoughtful and the wine may taste better. Do you need any other reasons? Not really.