Place names bring us direct word from the past, but rarely as poignantly as Gigondas –the modern name of an ancient wine-making village in the Rhône valley. Its story takes us to the reign of Caesar Augustus and the formation of the Second Legion in the year 43 B.C. Originally raised to fight for Octavian in the civil war against Mark Antony, the Second Legion campaigned for three centuries on the Italian peninsula, in Gaul and in Iberia, and ultimately in Britain.
By the year 35 B.C., veterans of the Second Legion were granted land to settle in the south of France in the Colonia Julia Arausio, near the modern city of Orange. Some soldiers founded a village in the upper Vaucluse which they named Jocunditas — “place of happiness and mirth.” These were men who had lived a hard life in the emperor’s service. In Jocunditas, they took off their hob-nailed sandals — fierce weapons in their own right — and laid their rectangular shields (scuti) and their short swords (gladii) in the corner. In Jocunditas, one could meet a local girl, start a family, and plant a vineyard. For these men, marching and fighting in the heat of the continent and later in the British cold, Jocunditas offered a dream of domestic happiness.
For two thousand years, Gigondas produced wine and olive oil. The great frost of 1956 decimated the olive trees. Wine production grew in the place of oil, and in 1971 the region received its A.O.C. designation. Gigondas is a Grenache blend with 20 % Syrah and Mourvèdre. The wine is known for its uninhibited vigor and girth with qualities of roast meat and baked earth.
Les Pallières makes iconic Gigondas wines. Terrasse du Diable is highly aromatic on the nose — mentholated and herbal The taste is also a little heady: earthy tomato, black currant, and a peppery glow. Like many of the Gigondas wines, Les Pallières has a firm grip and a direct, robust quality which inspires trust and affection. Despite all this activity, the wine is smooth — never rough — and pleasing in the mouth. On a warm night, poured out of doors for the thirsty descendants of the Second Legion, this is a wine made for laughter and grilled meat. Lamb, perhaps, with thyme and new potatoes.
About $28.
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Prosecco is a sparking white wine from the Veneto region in northern Italy. In recent years, it has become leaner and less sugary. It once tasted very much like the sticky Asti Spumante which we drank in high school parking lots. You can still find yourself with a bottle which tastes sweet and tinny. But when Prosecco is made right — and this one is — it catches the light of summer evenings and promotes conversation and laughter.
To me Spago Nero tastes like a peach. The taste is festive, restrained, not cloying. At only 10.5 % alcohol, this Prosecco makes a casual aperitif. The sweet orchard taste at the front gives way to a dry mineral finish. The bubbles lift the spirits. Who can brood over a glass of Prosecco? Simply not possible.
Less than $15.00
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Here is a wine to rush out for: light, brisk, tart — a beautiful brown-red color. This is a marvelous country wine from the Piedmont.
Let’s take care of the pronunciation. The second “g” is silent but contributes a “y” sound as we slide into the second syllable. So, “green – yo – leeno.” And etymology: grignolino means “filled with seeds” in the local dialect. These impart a tannic snap. Grignolino must be pressed thoughtfully by the winemaker’s family lest it become too bitter.
But a little bitter is good, and grignolino is fresh and acidic. The taste lingers in the mouth for a long time. This wine is the servant of food, not a separate show on its own. It makes itself welcome at the table.
La Mondianese is a small farm in the hills outside of Asti. They make 1,600 cases a year. I bought a case for warm summer nights. I doubt it will last through August.
About $15.00
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In France, below Burgundy and above the vast hothouse which is the south during summer, there are 10 storied villages: the crus Beaujolais. These lie in a chain, running north to south along the valley of the Saône. As empires came and went, the Romans, the Visigoths, the Moors and the Franks each took their turn in these lands. Today a few négociants pack and ship great lakes of new wine for the thirsty. These light red wines, blended from many properties and sold quickly, are fine in a pinch — but the taste of real Beaujolais remains in the wines of the 10 crus.
Two things distinguish Beaujolais. The first is the Gamay grape — that mutant love-child of Pinot noir. Sturdy and insouciant, Gamay boasts an unrepentant fruitiness. It is often served chilled. The pronounced fruit taste — often easy and happy- – is enhanced by carbonic maceration. This means that fermentation — the turning of sugar into alcohol by the vast and unseen community of yeast — occurs in an atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide. Less oxygen means less malic acid (the green apple taste) and a softer wine.
Côte de Brouilly lies along the lower slopes of Mont Brouilly near the village of the same name. (Brouilly and Côte de Brouilly are separate regions for wine purposes.) The Côte is a little higher, a little cooler, with volcanic soils from the ancient mountain. For these reasons, the wine is thought to be just a little better.
Château Thivin is classic Côte de Brouilly: slightly tart and bright like rhubarb, a little stony at the end, and infused with that cheeky Gamay warmth. The famille Geoffray has owned the vineyard for 5 generations — a short time, really, for lands once settled by Caesar’s legionnaires. You could serve this wine with something rustic — potato slices with chicken and artichoke, baked with a little cheese. Or chilled, on a stretch of lawn, at the end of the day as children play and call to each other from a distance.
About $20.
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We almost lost the Arneis grape. It is a white wine grape, grown in the Piedmont in northern Italy. Arneis means “Little Rascal.” The wine is difficult to grow: low yield, susceptible to mildew, and generally inconstant. (In contrast, Dolcetto — the little sweet one — gets its name for being the goody-two-shoes of the region — always eager to please.) Roero is the district, a little northwest of Alba, and one of two places where Arneis receives DOCG recognition.
The house of Vietti in Roero took the lead in the 1960’s in experimenting with Arneis. By tradition, the Piedmontese blended Arneis with the red Nebbiolo grape to soften the formidable tannins in the Barolo wines. When it became the fashion to make Barolo only with Nebbiolo, Arneis was left without much commercial purpose. Vietti and a few others began to offer Arneis in its natural white wine form. It has developed a tiny cult following which you could join.
The Vietti Arneis is a straw-colored wine, naturally so, made without oak in steel tanks. It has a strong briny smell, like sea-wrack on a pebble beach. The taste is crisp and floral — but more like fiddleheads and honey than a flower garden. There is a pleasant limestone taste, a little apothecary, like alka-seltzer or chalk, especially at the finish.
The mineral qualities — faintly bitter — make this wine a friend to almost any food. Veal, chicken, or pork — really anything this side of a porterhouse — would be fine. Any pasta except a savage Napoli red. Perhaps we could drink it one day with a white pizza in a little joint in Rome with a fried egg splashed across the top.
About $23.
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In the thirteenth century, the Spanish priest Gonzalo de Berceo, writing in the Suso monastery in Rioja, chastised the ungenerous in his poem “Signs of the Last Judgment.” 
Cuando el porbreziello a vuestra puerta vino
Pidiendo en mi nombre con ábito mesquino
Vos dar noli quiesiestes nin del pan nin del vino
When the poor folk came to your door, seeking wine in my name, dressed in mean rags, you gave these seekers nothing, neither bread nor wine.
The region took the good father’s words to heart. No one has been sent off empty-handed since. Wine forms the very heart of Rioja. For much of the twentieth century, it often came to us as rough Tempranillo (con ábito mesquino) or as ancient, oak-bound vintages, sometimes held for a generation before release. More recently, the influence of the Bordeaux style, just across the Pyrenées, has brought us wine which lies within a more conventional orbit — less oak, a softer blend, a little more “international” in appeal.
The Noe Coupage is a Rioja made in this more modern style. A 50/50 blend of Tempranillo and Grenacha, it spends only four months in French oak. The grapes are grown through organic methods. The result is a soft Rioja with qualities of chocolate and vanilla. The taste is generous, rich and immediate. It offers a kind of cheerful embrace. Trying it blind, I mistook it for one of those California blends which smell like fresh cake and taste of warm fruit. This is a friendly wine, easy and familiar. A final bonus: the weird tin label — like a pirate’s map — is half the fun.
About $15.00
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2007 Winderlea Estate Pinot Noir. Here is a beautiful pinot noir, quite innocent of any history. A vineyard created in 2006. Formerly a province of the Goldschmidt Winery which claims 16 years of experience on its website. Can we set aside this carping suspicion of the arriviste and just try the wine? Why not.
This is a red currant pinot — strongly flavored, ripe fruit, forward, bold and lush. Very Oregon. The nose is minty, headed towards eucalyptus. The oak is present but second, really, to the fruit — more spear carrier than general. This wine is winning and pleasing from the start.
Why do I hold back from unreserved adoration? The lack of “brown” — the absence of a solemn, admonitory note amidst the harvest glee. After fall comes winter. Perhaps we drank this wine a little early. Patience and age may bring out its elegiac qualities. But for now this wine brings a powerful sense of Oregon pinot — rich, miraculously “fruity” without candy or sugar. We drank this wine before dinner — it is best I think with a little blue cheese and some olives.
About $50.
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We have lined up two white Burgundies on the counter, both from Mâcon. One of us knew which glass was which — the other tried the two wines blind. One is a Macon-Villages at about $12; the other is Macon-Charnay “Le Clos Saint-Pierre” at $21. Both are made by the respected producer Verget.
Mâcon lies at the southern end of Burgundy. It has long been known for producing reliable Chardonnay — perhaps more lyric than epic in its ambition. The region’s most famous offering is Pouilly Fuissé. These are serviceable table wines which exist to complement food, especially shellfish.
Both the Village and the Macon-Charnay are on the crisp end of the Chardonnay spectrum. Side by side, the Village tasted more watery than the denser Charnay. They were clearly cousins. The Charnay is more assertive. It has a pleasing taste of pine and tart pear mixed with a little soft butter.
Considered together, both wines show us a way towards the ur-taste of Chardonnay. Things are clearer as the wine warms past the serving point. What is the taste exactly? Tasted warm, there is a faintly oily feel in the mouth — rich in the way that shrimp and salmon feel rich. The taste is not lemon or grapefruit, but acidic in the mineral-laden way that some water or earth is acidic. Both wines show us the direction of Chardonnay past sweetness towards a taste which has qualities of fermentation and weight. But — ne t’inquiète pas –these two excellent Macônnaise wines are easy to drink without further scrutiny or any more talk.
2007 Macon-Charnay “Le Clos Saint-Pierre”
About $21
2008 Macon-Villages
About $12
Producer: Verget
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Here is a cabernet on holiday. Parés Baltà “Mas Petit” 2007 from the Penedès region a few miles southwest of Barcelona. The wine is a blend: primarily cabernet with 16 % Grenacha. This is cabernet which has escaped the more formal restraints of the Bordeaux expression.
The taste is pink cherry, a little candied, ebullient and light-hearted. The wine passes quickly over the palate. It dries a little at the end and in that way stays fresh. It calls out for food which could be a little rich. Asiago fresco, a slab of mild Spanish cheese, sauteed in oil with rosemary; perhaps a hard-boiled egg, deviled with a spicy garlic mayonnaise and some fish roe. Or just rough bread, roasted under the broiler with salt and olive oil.
At the very reasonable price of this wine, you can show up with it anywhere. It is both stylish and organic. Really very nice.
About $11.
Food credit: The idea for pan-fried Asiago fresco goes to Michael Claus, chef at the Daily Planet in Burlington, Vermont.
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How shall we think about Burgundy? The Burgundians were Germanic people, mostly Swedes in origin, who crossed the Rhine in 411 and established their kingdom in central France, east of the Loire and north of the Rhône. Their success was short-lived. Burgundy was defeated by the Franks in 534 and later passed into the Holy Roman Empire. But the population remained: like all the Gaulish tribes, a little wild and given to drinking wine at full strength, undiluted.
What does this mean for the imagination? We start with an invading host: hungry for land and eager to mix with the local Celts and the exhausted heirs of the Roman hegemony. Then centuries of subjugation within other people’s empires. Surely some atavistic memory of independence remained, sufficient to fuel a reputation for brooding reserve. The region is landlocked. Before highways and canals, it lay in relative isolation at the top of the big river systems. The damp months are good for growing birds and mushrooms. Perhaps a spring lamb. Can it surprise anyone that Burgundy is a sort of world heritage site for the pleasures of the table?
Is this an entirely trustworthy account? Not really. Dijon, a city of great style, has a population of 150,000. These are not all gruff mannered peasants, trudging home with a pair of rabbits. But fiction and romance inform our appreciation as much in wine as in all else. The imagined picture of Burgundy as the misty, rustic home of winemakers and small landholders endures despite the quotidian glare of our own century.
Shall we try the wine? Burgundy is Pinot noir –light red, acerbic when young, supple, and so loved that it can become fiercely expensive. Let’s find our way in to these wines with the 2006 Domaine Pierre Guillemot Bourgogne. The Guillemot is not expensive. You can buy two bottles if you like. And it is very Burgundian: a brilliant darkish rose color in the glass. The taste is light and brisk — a little thin, perhaps, if you have been drinking Rhône or California wines. Give it time in the glass and it will open a little. Serve it early in the meal; people will be charmed. This wine has a very direct appeal: linear, acidic for the food, and a simple benchmark for the region. Consider it an introduction, an easy door to step through.
About $18.
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