KOVACS BROTHERS, 2005 MERITAGE, $25
- Fragrance: Rich plumbs. Earthtones. Woody.
- Taste notes: Bitter chocolate. Oaky. Meaty. Black pepper. Smoke.
- Serve with: Anything carnivorous. Porterhouse, New York, ribs. Anything with beef and a bone.
- Occasion: This is not an every-nighter. This is a my-baby-just-got-a-great-job-let’s-celebrate. It’s not a frivolous wine, but rather something you’d serve at a birthday — or a birth, for that matter.
- Serving Instructions: Room temperature (about 64 degrees) in a conventional Bordeaux-style glass.
Every time we bottle a wine, we feel cause for pride. It just takes so much time, and so much can go wrong. So much waiting, hoping praying that we won’t have spent all that money, only to make something that’s undrinkable.
Fortunately, we’re pretty sure this Meritage does not fall into that category. In fact, we’d go so far as to say that it’s downright enjoyable.
This is actually our second Meritage, following one that also was an ’05, but a different blend. We traveled around the country with that one and nearly sold out. (Fortunately, we hid a case from our father underneath our friend’s deck.) People were saying, “Gimme more,” and all we could do was pray that this newer Meritage, which we had in the barrel, was up to snuff. When we finally tasted it we knew that we’d not only matched the previous blend, but exceeded it.
This one differs from the first in that it’s a little heavier, with a stronger body and nose. The first one had a bit more finesse, and you could really appreciate it by itself. This one, you should serve with food. It’s potent stuff that goes best with a flavorful meal. When you open a bottle of this latest Meritage, you’re fully committed.
That said, this is an easier drinking blend than comparable Napa wines that New Schoolers might think are a bit too austere for them. This one is luscious, easy to guzzle along with a meal. It’s not overly eccentric; just big, bold, heavy and solid.
We also consider this to be a celebration of all the great fruit that’s grown in Monterey County. All of the grapes we used were from our home turf. We bottled it last November, and couldn’t be prouder of the result.
KOVACS BROTHERS, 2007 SYRAH, $20
- Fragrance: Clean, light toast, fresh-baked bread, and vanilla.
- Taste notes: Strawberry, wet stone, vanilla, citrus, tarragon.
- Serve with: Italian fare and thick-noodled penne.
- Occasion: Unlike our Meritage, this is an every-nighter. It’s a meal wine; a dinner wine. Perfect for Italian dishes.
- Serving instructions: Room temperature (about 64 degrees) in a conventional Bordeaux-style glass.
The grapes for this one came from the great Mario Perelli-Minetti Winery in Paso Robles, which was founded in 1912. Mario was once an attorney and U.S. Senator out of Los Angeles, but thankfully gave himself over to wine. In fact, he helped found what is now the California Wine Association. These days Mario’s grandson, Andrew, helps run the business.
Mario was still tending the vines at age 93. The grapes we used for our Syrah came from Mario’s last vintage before he passed away. His wake, which our father attended, was a coming together of a who’s-who of California wine.
We de-stemmed these grapes before macertating them, which smoothes out the flavors rather than making it taste jagged on the tongue. In other words, this wine won’t make you pucker, as some Syrahs do.
In all, we think the care that Mario Perelli-Minetti put into vines is evident in this Syrah, and we thank him for that.
SZALY, LATE HARVEST SAUVIGNON BLANC BOTRYTIS, $30
- Fragrance: Honeysuckle
- Taste notes: Just an ounce coats the tongue with the impact of a wine that’s been cellared for 20 years. Tastes like caramel and crème brulée.
- Serve with: Nothing. This is served at the end of a meal in lieu of dessert or after something like cheesecake. This ends the evening.
- Occasion: Tremendous as a gift, if for no other reason than it comes with a great story.
- Serving Instructions: This has to be served alone, as it’s 16% alcohol. A couple of sips coat the tongue. You could pour it over ice cream, but that would be sacrilegious.
Did you know that rot could be a good thing? Read on …
Our father’s grandfather was a legendary Hungarian winemaker, and our dad remembers walking through his vines, spraying them with copper and sulfur — most likely without wearing a mask. He also remembers there were times he didn’t spray so as to encourage the “noble rot” known as botrytis, a fungus whose most notable host is wine grapes.
The fungus gives rise to two different types of infections on the grapes. The first, grey rot, is the result of consistently wet or humid conditions, and typically results in the loss of the grapes.
The second kind, “noble rot,” occurs when drier conditions follow wetter ones, and can result in distinctively sweet dessert wines, such as Sauternes of France or (more relevant to our father) the Aszu of Tokaj, Hungary’s most famous (actually, its only famous) wine region. In this case, the fungus removes water from the grapes, leaving behind a higher percent of solids, such as sugars, fruit acids and minerals, which results in a more intense, concentrated final product. In fact, my father remembers only being allowed to pick grapes that had been infected by the noble rot.
The trick here is that botrytis complicates winemaking by making fermentation more complex. Botrytis produces an anti-fungal that kills yeast and often results in fermentation stopping before the wine has accumulated sufficient amounts of alcohol. In Tokaj, there’s legend of some winemakers letting their barrels ferment for 10 years. It’s like cheese — for blue cheese, aging is great. For cheddar, not so much.
The process if not very well known in California, to say the least, and were it not for our father’s Hungarian childhood, the opportunity would have passed us by entirely. A good friend of ours, Mark Cheeseboro, had some Sauvignon Blanc grapes that he let hang because he didn’t have room to deal with them. Sure enough, they were infected by botrytis due to the high humidity that stems from Mark’s winery being near the Arroyo Seco riverbed.
We snapped up the grapes and fermented them for more than a month, never adding any wine to it so as to get a pure effect.
