Gaja 2009 Harvest Report

There are few wines that I enjoy and admire more than Angelo Gaja’s. They are, year after year, among the most well-crafted, evocative, downright delicious produced in the world of wine.

Yesterday, I received in the mail the 2009 harvest report for Gaja Family Wine Estates, and the news is good. The report begins: “We are very pleased with the quality of the grapes from all three of our properties in 2009 and rate them very good to excellent. Though always reluctant to predict the quality of the wines this early, we are quite optimistic about this vintage.”

This is great news for fans of the wines that Gaja produces in Piedmont (under his eponymous label), Montalcino (Pieve Santa Restituta) and Bolgheri (Ca’ Marcanda). And though it will be a while until the 09’s are available, legends like the 2005 Costa Russi and the excellent 2002 Ca’ Marcanda Magari will certainly make the wait a bit easier.

Two years ago, I had the chance to visit Mr. Gaja in Barbaresco, taste his wines and then enjoy a spectacular dinner with him afterward. I wrote about the experience and the wines for John Mariani’s Virtual Gourmet; the article is linked up here.

And for more information, click here for an excellent interview with Gaia Gaja, Angelo’s daughter, that ran on Grape Radio in July of 2007.

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Piedmont 2006: Another Success Story

Wine Spectator has just released the scores for its top 2006 Piedmontese wines, including highly sought after Barolo and Barbaresco. And the good news is that, because of the less-than-stellar vintage conditions, a number of them are supposed to be nearly ready to drink right now. This makes them not only worth seeking out once they're available, but also useful additions to any wine collection: While you're waiting for your more age-worthy 2003's, 2004's, and 2005's to mature, you'll have these 06's to tuck into in the shorter term.

Top scoring Barbaresco includes the Pio Cesare, the Ceretto "Bricco Asili," and the always stunning Gaja. In Barolo, Pio Cesare and Boroli both received high scores.

And, of course, while you're waiting for these 2006's from Barbaresco and Barolo, the Barberas and Dolcettos from the same year are available right now and are drinking beautifully. Even in a more difficult year like 2006, Piedmont has apparently, yet again, produced some real standout wines.

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The Beauty of Leftovers

I’ve been tasting and teaching a fair bit lately. No more than usual, but for some reason I realized last night that I’d accumulated more than my typical number of bottles in the kitchen fridge. And most of them, despite the season, were richer reds. Which meant that I had the perfect excuse to grill up some hamburgers (on a stovetop griddle pan, of course: I live in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia, and there are ordinances against setting up a grill outside my building) and drink the remaining bottles with my wife.

It was a great way to start off the week, and definitely took the sting out of a Monday night.

Dinner was nothing fancy—that would defeat the purpose of making burgers—but it was prepared with the wines in mind. The hamburgers, for example, were made with fresh-ground beef that I picked up at Reading Terminal Market, 10 blocks away. And they were topped with a couple of strips of locally produced bacon and stuffed with a little bit of blue cheese. Not enough to dominate the flavor, but just the right amount to lend the meat an added sense of sweetness and funk when the cheese melted from the heat of the cooking. Balsamic caramelized onions provided a sweet bite, a fresh-baked sesame brioche roll a hint of nuttiness, and a rosemary focaccia roll a perfumed herbal quality.

Because the burger itself was already more than a mouthful, I decided to include the tomatoes on the side, as part of a tomato-parsley-and-herbes-de-Provence salad, as opposed to adding yet another layer to an already hefty burger. And instead of fries, I made a quick potato-and-local-string bean salad.

The beauty of a meal like this was the wide range of flavors and textures, which meant that I had all the latitude in the world when it came to the wine pairings.

All of the highlights were wines left over from classes I’ve recently taught at The Wine School of Philadelphia, and included the Bergerie l’Hortus Pic St.-Loup 2006, which picked up the minerality of the beef; the Borsao Garnacha “Tres Picos” 2007, whose ripe berry fruit and well-integrated spice sang with the onions and the herbs; and the Icardi Barbaresco “Montubert” 2004, which, though it would have been better had I added the sautéed mushrooms I was planning on, was still delicious. (Of course it was—it’s Barbaresco!)

The lesson here is simple, and one that I cannot stress enough: Have fun with your food and wine pairings, try combinations you might not have before, and, above all else, enjoy the juice in your glass. Because any time you’re drinking something that brings you pleasure is a cause for celebration, and can make even humble hamburgers memorable.

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Barbaresco Evolution

This will be my last post on the “Great Barbaresco Question” for now, but I had to write about what happened to the wine after having been open for a few days.

Saturday night, I made sure to leave a bit in the bottle, pump out the air, and put it in the fridge. Last night, 48 hours after having had it last, I poured myself the remaining wine to see how it was doing. Happily, it can be summed up in one word:

Wow.

What a difference 48 hours can make. The wine rose from the glass with a dense perfume of coffee, clay, truffles (pictured above), ripe raspberries, and rose petals, all of the time it had spent in my cellar finally making itself known. On the palate, this inexpensive Barbaresco had taken on an irresistible silkiness that carried the darker berries and bright acidity perfectly. What a wonderful evolution, and a real treat on a Monday night—like the weekend’s last unexpected hurrah.

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