"My little preciousssss"....

J

Joel Stewart

Joel Stewart
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Take all that you know and love about these things: clay/limestone terroir, natural petillance, salt and lemon notes, green apple and mineral nose and muscadet seashore flavors, 9.5% alc, but totally dry. Mix together thoroughly...and what do you get? Vinho Verde.

Bought on a whim, firstly because the bottle itself and labeling is so anti-marketing I had to bite.....the front looks like the back and the back looks like...well the back. How can they sell this stuff with a bottle looking so anti-social? Love at first sight.

"NV" ? - Caves Da Cerca, "Ouro Verde", Vinho Verde (Arinto/Azar Branco grapes - from the limited info I could find, these 2 are typical for the sub-denomination of Amarante...which is also to point out the obvious: Vinho Verde is not a grape), Amarante, Portugal (9.5%) - "Ouro Verde" is apparently Portuguese for the white-green quartz gemstone, and the color of this wine, a light-catching white green, does the moniker quite well. The nose crosses borders by showing light tinted Chablis/Reisling/Muscadet notes of florals, seashore and crushed rocks, with time more fruit appears, but only subtly so. On the palate it's a whirlygig zipper ride at a small town fair: a major citric flash of soda, mineral and lemony tang skimming across the palate at high speed, ending in a bright, dry exuberance that makes one feel like they just heard a good joke. As if all that wasn't enough, texturally this is a wonder: a tickling wave neither foamy, nor scrubbing, delivers the wine itself without overshadowing it. I never thought a wine could be both enjoyable and funny. The finish is high, salty and dry. Between the aromas, flavors and textures, it's impossible to imagine this wine wanting for anything more. The absurd $7 price tag completes the joke. You end up scratching your head for a minute and then, with summer coming on, you decide to drive to the store and buy a case. So much is delivered, when so much is not expected.

PS - On a side note, I found the interesting official Vinho Verde site while looking up the producer. It's chock full of information on both white and red vinho verde wines (including a section titled: "How to make Vinho Verde", which in itself is quite charming/interesting). One can type in the serial number on the label and find out more about the bottling...for example, this particular shipment was apparently bottled April 6 of this year and is on the shelves here in Japan in June.

End of sermon.
 
Jim, really, when was the last time you prayed?

Rainy season here in Kyoto finished on time to the day last week and the Asian sun furnace has kicked in, baking the surface of anything not shaded. Steam is rising out of water-soaked things: soil, people, pets, metal, brick, cars, plastic, insects, rubber, concrete, and asphalt.

Collectively, all this steam rises under perfectly blue skies invisibly, but by 6pm every day, the cumulus clouds pile up and stack vertical miles high, not only above the city, but for miles laterally. Big ships of sculpted puffy white, catching ambient color with the gradual setting of the sun. Tiepolo would go nuts. Pedestrians stunned by the heat can only crane necks upward when slogging through an outdoor walk down the street. You're lucky if you do: it's the only time of the year an urban dweller in Japan can see things with such clearly delineated architectural grandeur, immense scale and bright clarity so far far away and so high up above.

But it's still fucking hot...from now, vinho verde replaces water.

2009 Caves da Cerca, "Famega", Amarante, (9.5%) For this one, take all of the above initial post, give it a year's age and a slight Austrian GruVe touch and there you have it. I'm torn. There is a gain of funk and complexity which is an interesting twist....but you know what? - it's at the loss of that bright saline freshness, that sense of humor, which was so giggling and obvious in the vv above. A subtle distinction, but one that makes a difference when one is seeking a certain prey, right?

On the other hand, summer has begun, it's hot as fuck (even at 9:30pm) and the bottle is chilled, spritzy and a laughable $7.50, so who is crying?
 
Up in the Brazilian north, where it's pretty hot too, last week we drunk Casal Garcia vinho verde, one of Jim's favorites. This stuff is so easy to drink that it can make you heady in no time, especially if you're a bit dehydrated from the heat.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:

Rainy season here in Kyoto finished on time to the day last week and the Asian sun furnace has kicked in, baking the surface of anything not shaded. Steam is rising out of water-soaked things: soil, people, pets, metal, brick, cars, plastic, insects, rubber, concrete, and asphalt. [...]

But it's still fucking hot...from now, vinho verde replaces water.
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Joel,
My mother lived in Tokyo for a year in 1953, before the advent of air conditioning, when the only relief from the heat was opening the shōji doors and hoping for a breeze. She has described the weather you mention as unbearably hot and sticky, exceeded only by her summer spent in Washington, DC in 1949.

My sympathies (and congrats on the find),

Mark Lipton
 
Mark, I've been to DC, Boston, Manhattan, NC during the hot months and they all suck/equate Kyoto's hell. Kyoto's one saving grace is the sky and it's colors and clouds. That said, I tend to implode after about a month of trying to see the glass half full, so check in with me later, when the glass dries out...
 
Bruce...mugi cha is great, not quite as fun as VV, now is it tho? Esp. if you just walked out of the osento at 7pm in a body temp reset, from the sauna, hot and cold baths. But come on, you are in Hokkai-Idaho, which pales in temps compared to here! At least you gots cool nights!

Yes, thats a detail of one of my screen paintigs, pre mounted. I am locking in a space in Fushimi from late Septemner to late October to put the whole installation together and run it thru it's courses. Come down if you can and teach me more about koshu, etc.....and Ill try to round up a decent batch of indigenous yeast sake for that matter.
 
Oh now I follow (I was thinking about the overall composition being so centered, which is more typically western, but I like your take better).
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
Yes, thats a detail of one of my screen paintigs, pre mounted. I am locking in a space in Fushimi from late Septemner to late October to put the whole installation together and run it thru it's courses. Come down if you can and teach me more about koshu, etc.....and Ill try to round up a decent batch of indigenous yeast sake for that matter.
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Would love to stop by. No promises, though.... it's a busy time of year.

Re: Koshu... I'm all talked out at the present. A goodly number of folks from abroad seem to be interested in this grape. The attention seems all out of proportion, given that its a hybrid of very modest character.
For now, advice on Koshu: the 09s are coming out, and you should graze through them if you're interested in the grape. Twas a very good year for Koshu, about as good as it gets. Also, keep your eyes open for an article or two in a major US daily soon enough. Might be some explosive stuff included there... I hear that NYT is set to give the 09 Koshu a vintage rating of 93+ points!

Cheers,
 
OMG! (insert appropriate emoticon)

Roger on your schedule...I figured you'd probably have your hands full, but still extend the invite if luck prevails.
 
originally posted by MLipton:She has described the weather you mention as unbearably hot and sticky, exceeded only by her summer spent in Washington, DC in 1949.

Mark Lipton
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this summer surely exceeds that summer(altho a/c may be readily available). I think this is about the hottest summer on record, save for the summer I spent studying for the bar in an unairconditioned house.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
I am locking in a space in Fushimi from late Septemner to late October to put the whole installation together and run it thru it's courses.
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If you get Shinsei to supply their namazake and fried chicken knuckles, I'm there.
 
originally posted by Ignacio Villalgordo:
See if you can find Soalheiro Primeiras Vinnhas in those latitudes. Best vinho verde imho
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Warning: But Soalheiro is alvarinho, Ignacio. A very different animal...
 
originally posted by VS:
originally posted by Ignacio Villalgordo:
See if you can find Soalheiro Primeiras Vinnhas in those latitudes. Best vinho verde imho
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Warning: But Soalheiro is alvarinho, Ignacio. A very different animal...
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You both have piqued my curiosity.

Update: I've gone thru a few more of the Famega and have decided that this vinho verde, a year old, is fine for the uninitiated, but indeed lacks the saline, mineral verve of the vv from the first post. There could be some winemaking/grape sourcing diffs from the start, but I have a suspicion that the yr's age here is the main culprit. Are there qualitative levels of vinho verde, just like most other wines?. Both wines mentioned here appear to be massively produced (which was my impression of vv in general)...but at least considering the first one, I don't hold that aspect against it one bit. Just wish we had another recently bottled shipment to try again.

V, unfortunately, the Fushimi where the warehouse is, is flatland industrial park Fushimi, not the free run muroka namazake izakaya Fushimi, where they roll out the nankotsu....(still, nothing's too far away, so...check the airlines!)
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
Are there qualitative levels of vinho verde, just like most other wines?
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Totally. The Vinho Verde region is huge and lacks unity. Most areas are too humid, with soils that are too rich and give huge yields. Since most vineyards are tiny, owned by families who sell the grapes, the general aim is to produce huge yields from such grapes as arinto, avesso, azal or loureira. These are the lightest, most acidic, often (not always) most mediocre vinhos verdes. On well-exposed terraces on the Minho river which separates Portugal from Spain are the alvarinho (albario) vineyards of the Mono sub-region, which give fuller, more aromatic wines with some more alcohol they're considered the 'grands crus' of the region.
 
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