The Coravin

Argon is a colorless, tasteless, odorless inert gas. Its name comes from the Greek word for “lazy,” an allusion that underscores the fact that the element undergoes no chemical reactions. For years, winemakers concerned about surface oxidation have used the gas to top off their barrels. Meanwhile, consumers could only dream of having such a sophisticated preservation tool at their disposal for wines they’ve uncorked.

Enter Coravin founder Greg Lambrecht, a nuclear engineer who spent his career developing medical devices and a passionate collector of wines from Bordeaux, Piedmont and the Rhone. Not wanting to give up his favorite wines when his wife became pregnant, or commit to an entire bottle each night for nine months, he applied the design concept he developed for needles to pierce the septum of a vascular port to penetrating a wine cork.

With the Coravin, Lambrecht attached a hollow needle with holes on the sides to a canister of argon. Push the needle through the cork, press a button and argon is pumped into the bottle making it possible to extract a sip, a glass or even a carafe of wine. The wine left in the bottle is never exposed to oxygen. It remains unchanged, as if the cork had never been touched.

Ticking off potential applications is thrilling: enjoy a glass of your favorite wine when your significant other is out; decant a quarter or half bottle to see a wines evolution over time, then do it again the next night, week or month; explore multiple vintages of wines you’ve collected; taste multiple examples of a wine or region that has piqued your interest; preserve a delicate wine after having a glass as an aperitif; sample a treasured bottle over time. The list goes on.

Coravin is a tool for creating options regarding how, when, where and why -- at any given moment -- we taste the wines we love.

Napa by the (Cook) Book

When chef Christopher Kostow moved to Napa in 2008, he had just earned two-Michelin stars at TJ’s in Silicon Valley and was looking for a bigger stage for his cooking.

The opportunity to run the kitchen at The Restaurant at Meadowood freed Kostow to reimagine himself as an innkeeper with a dining room that lured gastronomic tourists with his innovative cuisine, a kind of modern day haute-aubergiste. It’s an idyllic image, but of course Meadowood is a five-star hotel built into the St. Helena hillside in the heart of wine country.

Something else happened to chef Kostow when he arrived there. Rambling with his dog Charlie along the region’s riverbanks, he discovered the other Napa. Beyond the classic cabernets and manicured gardens he found uncultivated passages where wild prune and walnut trees -- holdouts from the orchards that were a mainstay of the valley before it became devoted to vineyards -- growing among miner’s lettuce and rutabagas. It affected his cooking.

Kostow is the kind of chef who thinks deeply about his choices. As the title of his magnificent new coffee table book, A New Napa Cuisine, suggests, he has transplanted the values of The New Nordic Cuisine (pristine local ingredients and a freedom from traditional French techniques) to the bountiful landscape of northern California. The result is cooking that is both deeply personal and reflective of the “somewhereness” that is the Napa Valley.

For Kostow, quality is the new luxury, not just for the ingredients themselves, but also for their cooking vessels and the dishes on which they are served. He cooks potatoes in beeswax, sturgeon over coals and serves them in ceramic bowls and on slabs crafted by local artisans.

You probably won’t cook much from A New Napa Cuisine, but reading it is like a long leisurely meal in the company of one of the finest chefs of our generation. 

 

Preserving Spain's Classic Wines and Terroirs

A Valencian who adopted California as his home, José Pastor is a tireless advocate of handcrafted wines made from Spain’s indigenous grape varieties in classic and up-and-coming regions. He has cornered the market on fine wines from the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago seventy miles off the Moroccan coast, where wine has been grown for more than five hundred years. He has helped resurrect the red wines of Galicia and offered a window into what terroir driven wines from Rioja and Ribera del Duero could taste like. In a country that has no shortage of wines that are robust and modern, José Pastor Selections is the source for wines from organic vineyards that favor the use of indigenous yeast and minimum filtration. A great introduction to his portfolio is the Frontón de Oro Gran Canaria, a Canary Island red made from tintilia, a local variety cultivated on terraced slopes. The wine’s fresh red fruit, delicate floral aromas and hints of white pepper evoke the sense of dusk in a Mediterranean garden.

Reducing the Carbon Footprint in Bordeaux

Few economic sectors see the effects of global warming as clearly as winemakers, for whom the words “weather” and “vintage” are synonymous. In Bordeaux, decades of records show that the harvests are occurring earlier and the wines tend to be less acidic and higher in alcohol. While these changes are not entirely linked to climate change -- technical improvements and new vineyard management regimes have made it easier to grow ripe healthy grapes -- the Bordelaise know it is a fact of life.

Aware that wine regions must implement strategies to preserve vineyards for generations to come, in 2008 the Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB) commissioned a study to measure the Bordeaux wine industry’s greenhouse gas emissions. The study pointed to incoming goods, particularly glass bottles, as being the leading contributor to the region’s carbon footprint, followed by wine transport and energy use in the vineyard and cellar.

The CIVB responded to the study by launching The Bordeaux Wine 2020 Climate Plan with the goal of reducing the region’s total emissions by 20% by the end of the decade, while increasing its energy and water conservation 20% during the same period. For wineries seeking to reduce greenhouse emissions, here are a few lessons from the Bordeaux study worth considering:

Use Lighter Bottles: Move to bottles that retain the same physical properties and appearance as conventional bottles, but are lighter and made with fewer materials.
Collect Empty Packaging: In 2012, Bordeaux was able to collect and recycled 17.5 tons of empty packaging, which was used to produce alternative energy for cement manufacturing.
Study and Alter Wine Shipment Methodologies: Bordeaux plans to increase its use of maritime shipping, which generates 5.5 % less CO2 than ground transport.
Consider Groups and Support Networks: Collective efforts allow winemakers to share both the startup costs linked to setting up an environmental protection process and strategies for continued improvements.

The Genesis of Louis / Dressner

When Long Island son Joe Dressner met Burgundy native Denyse Louis at NYU, the two were studying for their masters’ degrees in journalism. At the time, they had no idea that one day they would start a wine importing business together. Yet with their partner Kevin McKenna, they have created one of the most influential wine portfolios in America. Today, Louis / Dressner represents over a hundred properties, mostly in France and Italy, but also in Spain, Portugal and Croatia. Advocates of organic and artisanal practices long before it was fashionable and simply because the practices made wines taste good, they have introduced some of the most characterful wines available in the country. When they imported the Didier Dagneau Pouilly-Fume Silex, it set a new standard for the level of complexity one dared to expect from a Sauvignon Blanc. With Arianna Occhipinti they revealed the potential for Frappato and Nero d’Avola to capture the wild elegance of southeast Sicily. Their Alice et Olivier de Moor A.O.C. Chablis “Bel Air et Clardy” is ethereal in its clarity. Dressner passed away in 2011, but his spirit is very much alive in the catalogue of passionate vignerons he assembled during his lifetime.

When Wine Tells a Family Story

When Nelson Mandela’s daughter and granddaughter, Dr. Makaziwe (Maki) and Tukwini Mandela, considered a foray into the wine business, two factors propelled them to go ahead with the venture. The first was socioeconomic: South African wine is a three billion dollar a year industry, employing 350,000 of its citizens with less than two percent black ownership. The second motivator was storytelling. The Mandela women want the world to know Nelson Mandela as a product of a culture, a descendant of a royal Thembu bloodline, not a phenom of higher-consciousness dropped from the sky.

The House of Mandela has two labels, the Royal Reserve and the Thembu Collection. All the grapes are sourced from family owned fair-trade certified vineyards that respect the biodiversity of the Western Cape. The Royal Reserve wines are supposed to represent the best of South Africa. The label features a bee with tangled vines for wings, a kind of family crest. Nelson Mandela’s tribal name Rolihlahla, means bee. To the Thembu, bees are symbols of courage, compassion and agents of change. The vines are the tangled Mandela family tree. The Thembu wines are for everyday drinking and are intended reflect the hospitality and warmth of the Thembu people. The label features swatches of bright batik prints of Nelson Mandela’s signature Madiba shirts 

If all goes well, Dr. Makaziwe and Tukwini dream of planting vineyards on the Eastern Cape, which the Thembu traditionally call home. “We are people of the soil,” says Dr. Makaziwe. “Making wine is natural for us.”

Graves and Entre-deux-Mer

Bordeaux’s dry white wines are too often overlooked for those of Burgundy and the Loire. Perhaps because the region’s signature white blend -- sémillon and sauvignon blanc -- lacks a clear new world reference like chardonnay from the Napa Valley or sauvignon blanc from New Zealand. Perhaps because the wines struggle for airtime, given Bordeaux’s identification with collectible cabernet sauvignon and merlot. Still, the category begs for discovery. There is very good dry white Bordeaux at every price point. Given its reputation for soaring prices, the region may be the world’s least expected source of value wines. 

Dry white Bordeaux comes from three appellations: Pessac-Léognan, Graves and Entre-Deux-Mers, with the most exalted examples, such as Domaine Chevalier and Laville Haut-Brion, coming from Pessac-Léognan. But it is in Entre-Deux-Mers and Graves that the unexpected treasures are found. Gems from Entre-Deux-Mers, the area between the Dordogne and Garonne rivers, tend to be simple and well priced. At $12 Château Fonfroide, a blend of sauvignon blanc, sémillon and muscadelle, is as refreshing as it is pleasing, offering hints of white peach and honey on the nose and a soft yet lively expression on the palate.

In Graves, the appellation directly south of Pessac-Léognan, each wine tells its own story about why bright and herbaceous sauvignon blanc should be blended with fleshy honeyed sémillon. At $16, the award winning Château Les Clauzots, speaks generously of citrus and tropical fruit anchored by a firm mineral backbone. At $29.99 the Vieux Château Gaubert is a tightly coiled double helix of seashells, honeysuckle and lemon pith, suggesting a wine with true aging potential. Tuck it away for three or four years in the back of your closet and witness the transformation. You are likely to be rewarded with a textured wine possessing aromas of honeyed almonds that is supple and broad on the palate. 

A helpful place to continue exploring Bordeaux’s value wines is Today’s Bordeaux, which features 100 wines from the region priced between $9 and $55.

Château Latour and the Araujo Estate Winery

When the French billionaire François Pinault’s investment company announced this past August that it had purchased Araujo, an estate that produces one of the Napa Valley’s most prized cabernet sauvignons, a sense of exhilaration swept through the California wine world. Not only had Araujo been included in a highly curated portfolio alongside Château Latour in Pauillac,Château Grillet in the northern Rhone and Domaine d’Eugenie in Vosne-Romanée, Burgundy, it marked the first time the owner of a First Growth Bordeaux had invested (without an American partner) in a Napa winery. The purchase was seen as yet another affirmation that the region’s finest wines now compete in the same league as the most exalted wines on the planet. 

The announcement went a step further, making it clear that the group had not just bought a well-known luxury brand but also a coveted terroir. The CEO of Château Latour is quoted calling Araujo’s thirty-eight acre Eisele Vineyard (pronounced ICE-lee) “unique” and the estate’s “jewel.” 

The Eisele Vineyard has been producing legendary vineyard-designate cabernet sauvignon since 1971, mostly for Joseph Phelps Vineyards until Bart and Daphne Araujo purchased the property in 1990. The Araujo’s immediately understood the specialness of the site and introduced organic and biodynamic vineyard practices to let it speak to its full potential through their wines. If you look at the Araujo wine labels, the designation Eisele Vineyard is always larger than their name on the bottle. 

While Napa does not officially assign vineyards a classification such as First Growth or Grand Cru status, with the purchase of the Araujo Estate Winery by Château Latour,  Eisele can lay claim to being its first star vineyard.

A Royal Warrant For Champagne

Given that 2013 will likely be a year for William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to celebrate, why not use Boxing Day as a moment to revisit the Champagne chosen to toast their marriage. For six months before their nuptials, only six people outside the Royal Household Wine Committee were in on the secret that magnums of Pol Roger Brut Réserve Brut were served at the reception, two from the Pol Roger office in England and four from the office in France. The order was run through Berry Bros. & Rudd, the venerable wine and sprits shop on St. James Street in London, whose managing director Simon Berry moonlights as the Clerk of the Royal Cellars and head of the Royal Household Wine Committee.

Far from the only Champagne in the running, the Royal Household Wine Committee considered wines from all seven Champagne houses with a Royal Warrant from H. M. The Queen: Pol Roger Bollinger (the preferred Champagne of 007), Louis Roederer, Krug, G. H. Mumm, Moet & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin and Lanson Pére et Fils. Robert Large, the Royal Cellar’s Yeoman, ultimately chose the wine for the event.

Why Pol Roger? Hubert de Billy, who directs domestic sales and global marketing for the house, speculates, “Given the economy, they wanted high-quality non-vintage Champagne in magnums from a family-owned company that was not trendy, but part of the gentry way of living.” The price offered had to be fair, “Not more than the general public would pay and not less.” And it didn’t hurt that Pol Roger was a favorite of both Sir Winston Churchill and Princess Diana. The Brut Reserve, which is equal parts Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay, is given at least three years to age, leaving it round and elegant.

Laurent-Perrier was served at the private dinner at St. James Palace in the evening – it has Royal Warrant from the Prince of Wales but not H. M. The Queen. It makes one wonder what the Yeoman of the Royal Cellar will serve on New Year’s Eve.

Entertain Like an Antinori

Cantinetta Antinori opened in 1957 on the ground floor of the family’s ancestral home in Florence. Palazzo Antinori, as the trattoria is known, is an homage to the medieval tradition whereby aristocratic families sold delicacies from their country estates by offering those dishes through small windows in the wine cellars of their city residences. Over time, what began as a small shop featuring the Antinori’s wines and olive oils evolved into a popular sixty-seat traditional Tuscan restaurant.

Allegra Antinori, a 41-year-old mother of two with luminous green eyes, oversees the Cantinetta in Florence, along with outposts in Vienna, Zürich and Moscow. She also manages hospitality at all the Antinori estates. Her job could be described as demonstrating her family’s commitment to authenticity and finesse through food, drink and generosity.

Allegra believes that wine should be an emotional experience. She wants her guests to use their senses to perceive perfumes, tastes and textures and respond to wine viscerally, the way they might to a piece of music or a work of art. She fosters environments at the restaurants and estates that encourage this kind of experience by entertaining elegantly without being overly formal or excessive. She greets guests with a glass of wine, sits everyone at one long table, serves family style and always has something boiling on the stove.

In early October, Allegra brought Cantinetta Antinori to New York City as a pop-up restaurant at the Mondrian hotel in Soho. The scene was set as if for an opera, complete with faux marble walls, a replica of the Antinori family tree dating back 26 generations, and a long communal table. The 2008 Tignanello, the most important current release in the family’s portfolio, was served with the simplest dish, gnudi, a dumpling made of spinach and ricotta served in a tomato cream sauce. The pairing was revelatory. The pillowy dumpling revealed the Super Tuscan wine to be elegant and expansive. Of course, for many of us, serving Tignanello requires stretching the budget. After dining at Cantinetta Antinori, however, the wine feels more accessible knowing that the rest of the evening’s shopping requires little more than spinach, ricotta, Parmesan and eggs.

Gnudi: Ricotta-Spinach Dumplings
Serves: 4
Preparation time: 60 minutes
Based on the recipe from Cantinetta Antinori, Flavors of Tuscany

1¼ cup, fresh ricotta cheese
1 cup, leaf spinach, cooked, drained, and finely chopped
3 tbsp, grated Parmesan cheese
2  eggs
¼ tsp, nutmeg, grated
½ cup, flour, as needed
½ lb, melted butter

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Drain the ricotta well and place it in a bowl. Add the thoroughly dried spinach, half the Parmesan, the eggs, the nutmeg and a large pinch of flower. Mix well and let and let rest for at least 30 minutes. Bring salted water to a rolling boil in a large pot. Using your hands or two spoons, form the ricotta mixture into small dumplings. Dust the dumplings with flour and gently drop them into the salted water. When the dumplings rise to the surface, remove them with a slotted spoon and transfer to an ovenproof dish. Top the dumplings with the melted butter and remaining Parmesan cheese and cook in the preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes. Garnish with a dollop of your favorite tomato sauce. Serve hot.