December 7, 2009

Palmberg-Terrassen: A Photo Journey

The Palmberg Terrassen is a completely unknown, roughly 5-hectare vineyard that is more than farmed by the Stein family; it is loved by the family. There's a devotion here, a connection to the land that is humbling. Ulli Stein's 87-year-old father has been making wine here since the early 1960s and he still visits the site almost daily, tending to his vines and drinking the wines of the vineyard as often as he can. Ulli Stein's 2008 Palmberg-Terrassen is dense and saturating, darn-near glossy with extract - lime zest, razor-sharp citrus, wild green herbs. The 2008 Stein Palmberg-Terrassen is likely the greatest Riesling value on earth.

Click the button below to see our real-time online inventory of Stein's 2008 St. Aldegunder Palmberg Terrassen Spatlese Trocken:

Roses dot the vineyard here and small sheds provide respite. Due to the severity of the incline, obviously working this site is extremely difficult and tiring. Many acres of the site have gone fallow, overrun by the wilderness. At this point, to the best of our knowledge, the Steins are the only serious producers within the vineyard, farming 1.3 hectares of the site and producing a scant 2 Füders worth of juice - that's only about 230 cases. The 2007 is THE FIRST bottling to be imported into the U.S.!

The shrine that Ulli Stein's father built within the vineyard. To this day, at 87-years-old, Herr Stein still visits his vineyard almost daily. In this picture you also see the "Terrassen," or terraces, that largely define the landscape of the Lower Mosel.

Here you get a real sense of just how very steep this vineyard is.

Another, slightly more panoramic view of the Palmberg-Terrassen vineyard.

Click the button below to see our real-time online inventory of Stein's 2008 St. Aldegunder Palmberg Terrassen Spatlese Trocken:

Posted by Joe Salamone at 10:45 AM | TrackBack

September 10, 2009

Invite: MADCrush Wine Bar Returns!

MADCrush
Special Encore Presentation
THURSDAY - SEPTEMBER 17TH
6:00 - 10:30 pm

@ the Museum of Arts and Design
Crush pairs wines to dishes from NYCs top chefs!

Next Thursday evening, we're excited to revive our MADCrush "pop-up" wine bar for a special encore presentation. The full details (along with some surprises) to come, but we have confirmed that Daniel Boulud's rising star chef, Damian Sansonetti, Executive Chef of Bar Boulud, will be in house!

Please join us as we continue to showcase our award-winning selections, as well as some of our favorite 'off the beaten path' favorites by the taste, glass, and bottle in recyclable govino glasses.

Our selections are chosen specifically to accompany menus of small plates from a roster of New York’s best chefs. Past chefs have included Mark Ladner of Del Posto, Scott Conant of Scarpetta, George Mendes of Aldea, and Cesare Casella of Salumeria Rossi. | Read More

Posted by Bob Schagrin at 1:49 PM | TrackBack

August 18, 2009

Niederberg Helden Vineyard

Get to know the Niederberg Helden Vineyard in the village of Lieser, courtesy of your friends at Crush.

Why did Thomas Haag, the eldest son and scion to the Fritz Haag estate, pack up his bags, leave the family estate and invest himself completely, pocketbooks, elbow grease, soul and all, into the crumbling Schloss Lieser (castle of Lieser) estate?

When I asked Thomas this last March over lunch (see schnitzel, below), he sort of just shrugged his shoulders. If I had to guess, I'd say one thing: Potential.

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Posted by Stephen Bitterolf at 9:36 AM | TrackBack

June 25, 2009

2008 Germany - A Very "Important" Vintage

Do you just want to read about the individual growers and their wines? Scroll down...

It's a ludicrous title for a vintage report, I know.

Still, I'm sticking with this title because it's stuck with me, ever since I shook Oliver Haag's hand goodbye and left my first tasting appointment of the 2008 vintage in Germany. (That was, by the way, April 18th, 2009, just to give you some context).

Let me try and explain what I mean by the word "important." The 2008 vintage presents, for the first time in some years, an authentic snapshot of what we used to mean by the words "Kabinett" and "Spatlese." If the last few years have turned the stage over to the Baroque masterpieces, the epics with layer after dripping layer, in 2008 we find something more intimate, smaller...2008 is less Wagnerian Opera and more Chamber music. Less the expansiveness of Jackson Pollock and more the detailed, tight, etched spaces of Albrecht Durer. For those of you who know sports, enter some sports analogy here. 2008 is concise and sharp.

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Posted by Stephen Bitterolf at 2:38 PM | TrackBack

March 13, 2009

Knebel: Lower Mosel Speaks

Weingut Knebel is situated in what is considered the Lower Mosel's best village, Winningen. It is also happens to be one of the warmest areas in the Mosel and therefore the style at Knebel (especially for the dry wines) is muscular and powerful, while (almost miraculously) elegant.

Knebel's dry wines are made by Gernot Kollman, the former winemaker at Van Volxem. The noble sweet wines, also held in the highest regard, are made by Beatte Knebel. Gernot works in a hands-off manner with indigenous yeasts while also using ambitious methods to extract profound aromatics and concentration from the grapes: pre-fermentation oxidation, extended skin contact and high fermentation temperatures.

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Posted by Joe Salamone at 7:30 PM | TrackBack

March 12, 2009

Ulli Stein: Rebel of the Mosel

The steeply terraced and visually stunning vineyards of the Lower Mosel don't offer an easy life to those who tend them. They are laborious and costly to work and their obscurity means the grapes they produce often fetch a low price.

More work, less pay. This cruel formula often results in two contrasting issues - one good, one bad.

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Posted by Joe Salamone at 8:17 PM | TrackBack

September 19, 2008

Van Volxem Dinner - Random Thoughts and Tasting Notes

Joe and I were pretty excited to host a dinner last Sunday at Hearth in NYC starring none other than Van Volxem's owner: Roman Niewodniczanski. Pretty much everything you've heard about him is true. He is very tall and he is very opinionated. He's not shy. And he's also making some of the most serious dry Rieslings in the Saar Valley. As an heir to the Bitburger beer fortune he's applied a "spare no expense" philosophy to his estate: Manic vineyard work, crazy-low yields sourced from some of the top sites of the Saar: Scharzhofberger, Altenberg and Gottesfuss to name a few. This was the first tasting of his 2007 single-vineyard wines, so it was sort of a treat to be the first in the U.S. to taste these dry Rieslings.

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Posted by Stephen Bitterolf at 5:58 PM | TrackBack

September 17, 2008

Didier Dagueneau Dies at Age 52

Didier Dagueneau was one of the most formidable and talented winemakers in France. He died on Wednesday, September 17th in the morning, after the ultralight plane he was piloting apparently stalled soon after takeoff. He was 52 years old.

With really only Edmond Vatan as his inspiration, he demanded a severity and a purity of his wines that was matched only by the severity of his personality. He raced motorcycles, was an avid dogsled racer and later took up flying as a part of his in-your-face, daredevil personality. As a winemaker, he was no less outspoken and he criticized, loudly, those winemakers he saw cutting corners, or not living up to the potential of their vineyards. While he was controversial, he was also greatly respected and his wines undeniably given a sort of "Grand Cru" status in the Loire region.

Click here to read Eric Asimov's official obituary, published on Thursday in the New York Times.

Posted by Stephen Bitterolf at 5:17 PM | TrackBack

September 1, 2008

2007 German Vintage Report: Purity, Depth and Concentration Manifest

Just about everything you need to know about the 2007 German vintage, incorporating notes from Rudi Wiest, Therry Theise, Lars Carlberg of the Mosel Wine Merchant, Gernot Kollmann of Weingut Knebel and John Gilman of the newsletter A View from the Cellar.

Could it get any better than that?

Yes, it can because the great 2007ers of Germany are classics with just epic wines at the Kabinett and Spatlesen level while the Auslesen are good to very, very good. And unlike 2006 (not to mention 2005 and 2003) which produced opulent Auslesen and above at the expense of the featherweight Kabinetts, 2007 has it all. Shimmering Kabinetts, absolutely profound Spatlesen, Auslesens that are clean and sleek... Wow.

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Posted by Stephen Bitterolf at 7:11 PM | TrackBack

August 12, 2008

The Newest Member of Crush! Only a few days old...

We are thrilled to announce that Crush's Managing Partner Bobby Schagrin and his wife Bernie welcomed a baby boy into their family early Tuesday morning. Mother, baby and father are all doing great. We'll post more details soon!

Posted by Stephen Bitterolf at 9:11 AM | TrackBack

May 14, 2008

Krug's 1995 Clos d'Ambonnay

Olivier Krug, Crush Managing Partner Robert Schagrin and Crush Director of Fine and Rare Wine, Ian McFadden.

This is the Clos d'Ambonnay.

This is also the Clos d'Ambonnay - styled by the vintage of 1995.

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Posted by Stephen Bitterolf at 5:43 PM | TrackBack

April 28, 2008

Scholium Project: Dinner in New York City

I liked the wines of the Scholium Project the first time I had them. While the landscape of California (as translated through grape and wine) is so often a full-throttle world of nearly overwhelming power, the wines of Abe Schoener's Scholium Project combine a tactile (and yes, ripe) intensity with a mysterious complexity that gives the wines a most unique, and most singular, profile.

A Jeroboam of 2004 Scholium Project Babylon is poured.

I also liked Abe Schoener the first time I met him; there is an honest rigor to the way he works and thinks - which is, I suppose, to be expected as Abe is a former professor of Greek Philosophy. In fact, I believe the wines of the Scholium Project really do embody the notion of "winemaking as thinking." I wrote an essay all about this idea - a meandering and philosophical treatise that undeniably flirts with the ridiculous, as well as hopefully with a touch or two of the sublime.

In any event, it was with great pleasure to host Abe and some press, friends and fans of the Scholium Project (collectors of the Scholium Project wines are a passionate group of people) for a great dinner at the Stanton Social, in New York City's lower east side.

The lineup involved a number of new releases as well as a bevy of back-vintage goodies brought from California by the man himself, Abe Schoener...

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Posted by Stephen Bitterolf at 11:06 AM | TrackBack

April 15, 2008

Scholium Project: Winemaking as Thinking

The following is an essay I handed out at a dinner I hosted in New York City for Abe Schoener and his Scholium Project wines in the spring of 2008. - Stephen Bitterolf

"Scholium: From the Greek , which shares the same root as "school, scholarship." Signifies a modest project, not a preeminent one, undertaken for the sake of learning, understanding - hence a commentary, an essay, a study." www.scholiumwines.com

"Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it." Jasper Johns, Notebooks, 1963-4

You just never know what to expect from the Scholium Project.

The 2006 vintage produced (among many other things) two very different Sauvignon Blancs from the Farina Vineyard atop Sonoma Mountain - twisted sisters if ever there were. One, a ruthless ice queen, pulsing out lightning bolts of minerals and acidity, the other a ponderous eccentric (a Prince in His Caves as it were), dressed in plush fabrics, as mysterious as the other is lashing.

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Posted by Stephen Bitterolf at 2:51 PM | TrackBack

May 5, 2007

2006 Rudi Wiest "Riesling Preview" Barrel Tasting at Grand Sichuan

Joe Salamone and I were lucky enough to attend this excellent lunch in February which highlighted barrel samples from a medium swath of Rudi's producers. Here are our long overdue notes:

We are reticent to provide any definitive conclusions based on this modest (but fun) selection of barrel samples, the most impressive wines seemed to fall within two camps :

1) Vineyard sites that offered some protection against the fast developing botrytis that resulted from an August filled with nearly continuous rain.

2) Growers who had enough resources and sincerity to practice ridiculously rigorous selection. (Rudi told us that the yield at Rebholz's Kastanienbusch vineyard in the Pfalz were only 12ha/hl.). Unfortunately their sacrifice may result in some pretty crazy prices.

Other important notes:

Though September was generally dry and warm, hail and rain were also present in late September/early October which hastened the harvest for most if not all estates. Conditions were extremely challenging: the fruit was ripening quicker than predicted and botrytis was beginning to rage so the harvest was done at lightening speed.

To us, the wines that seemed to miss the mark shared a penchant for their exotic flavors becoming unfocused with a prevalence of overripe tropical fruit. Those that were spot-on had unparalleled concentration and structure.

It's seems clear that dry wines, lower pradikat levels, and QbA wines will be minefields in 2006 - not only was production down by 35-50% in general (due to harsh selection) but few if any true "Kabinett" wines exist as many grapes were harvested near 130 Ochsle!. Moreover, growers that believe in adhering staunchly to traditional style (like Manfred Prum) actually made zero QbA and Kabinett wines and only a bit of Spatlese.

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Posted by Tom Stephenson at 6:21 PM

November 10, 2006

1990 Nicolas Joly Coulee de Serrant

Here are my (short) tasting notes:

Color: Mid->Dark apple juice yellow/brown.

Warmed up beautifully and needed the decant (the man knows what he's doing with those paper inserts that say "serve at X celsius and decant for a long time.")

Lovely sweet herbal aromatics and that classic Joly green-tea on the attack.

Excellent mid-palate of surprising freshness and acidity. While fun up-front, the real treat was the finish. LONG. Rich. Would have with a steak with it even at this age, or just enjoy on a cool November night with a lawn chair. Not for the faint of heart.

Posted by Tom Stephenson at 1:48 AM

March 26, 2006

Drink Wine. Not Soup.

"Ahhh, perfect temperature," my boyfriend and I said at the same time after tasting the slightly cool Côtes du Rhône the waiter brought to our table. Our friends, knowing we both work in the wine business, stopped talking and looked at us curiously. "So is that some sort of wine speak? Should I say 'perfect temperature' next time I taste wine to impress people?" one friend asked.

It wasn't supposed to be a wine geek comment at all, but it seems few people know to serve red wine cooler than split pea soup. We've experienced wine temperature offences at all levels of establishments – from a casual pizza place in Brooklyn to an elegant restaurant near Union Square. When red wine tastes like it was stored too close to the kitchen, we usually ask a server to put the bottle over ice for a few minutes. After this chill time, our casual wine-drinking friends always admit they like the wines better.

Warm red wine reveals too much scathing alcohol which obscures the fruit and other flavors. Bring the wine down a few degrees, and suddenly the fruit seems fresh and bright, the alcohol more nicely integrated. Serve red wine too cold, however, and the fruit becomes dull and the mouth-drying tannins too evident. Wines with fewer tannins, like Beaujolais and some Pinot Noir quaff easily around 55 degrees F. For your strapping young cabernets and shirazes with aggressive tannins as well as older wines with loads of nuance to divulge, think more like 60 to 62 degrees F.

Wine temperature should not be a concern exclusive to wine geeks. Why? Wine is supposed to be enjoyed, and the unofficial poll shows that even occasional wine drinkers find slightly cool red wine more pleasant. Next time life serves you soupy red wine, impress your friends. Ask for an ice bucket. Then you, too, can say, “Ahhh, perfect temperature.” —Kristin Donnelly

Posted by Bob Schagrin at 7:31 PM