Nice and surprisingly nice wines

S

Saina Nieminen

Saina Nieminen
I was going to have a glass of Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier 2007 with dinner (a fish good enough for Jehova!) since I thought a heavy white would work with lightly smoked halibut and since it was relatively cheap. I ended up having three, since I couldn't believe it was so good. I thought this was supposed to have been mass market crap, but 13,50 apparently can get some pretty good mass market stuff even in Finland...

14,5% abv; 13,51; 60% used oak; 40% steel, but the oak doesn't smell (gladly).

Greenish gold. Citric, floral scent, obviously Viognier, but very much in an elegant style rather than the style that makes fireworks out of the aromatics. It is even mineral. From the scent, I didn't expect a huge body, but it was still oily but with good supporting acidity. Strangely good - I had to check the label occasionally to see that I am really drinking a cheap Aussie Viognier - but the high alcohol does show a bit on the finish.

Apparently the winemaker (Mrs. Rose) who makes one of my favourite cheap Rieslings (Pewsey Vale) is also responsible for this.

Since tasting this bottle and drinking another I have seen reports that this sees too much oak. I thought I was quite sensitive to oak, but perhaps not. I enjoyed it; disorderlies beware!

Marimar Torres Chardonnay Acero Don Miguel Vineyard 1007 Sonoma County, Russian River Valley

14,2% abv; unoaked (the name Acero comes from the Spanish for steel); 28,80. I often enjoy Chardonnay when it doesn't see oak so I was interested in trying this rare, unoaked Californian. Green-gold. The scent starts out with a lovely, bright citrus aroma - limes and general greenness in fruit aromas, though it certainly has no lack of ripeness! Quite on the contrary, if anything is bothersome it is the ripeness and resulting high alcohol which shows as slight heat - it isn't off-putting in its strength, but I would enjoy it more with less.

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After an hour or two the malolactic scents come forward and the initial brightness is somewhat dimmed. Also the fruit shows more sweet, but it does retain its stony minerality and the charming citrus and green apple aromas. Despite being a full bodied wine, this is racy. Very nice, except for the slight heat and the price. This bottle seemed to have the concentration and structure to age for a few years - is this bottling known to age well in the near or mid term?

With my friend Igor + his wife + friend we tasted some nice wines and had some nice food and had enjoyable conversations - I was especially glad to talk about my love of Russian literature (Chekhov rocks!) with people who speak Russian! :) - i.e. the company and wines and foods were all very enjoyable:

Trimbach Pinot Gris Rserve Personnelle 2002
13,5% abv; c. 29; 12g/l RS; 6,5g/l acidity. A lovely spicy scent: red apples, red fruit and red spice. It is full bodied, perhaps even very full bodied, but the acidity keeps it in check though the sugars, in turn, moderate the acids. The result is, for me, a fascinating wine where all the elements compete with and support each other, causing both tensions and balance. In short, though not a grape that is usually a favourite of mine, a very moreish and lovely wine!

Yannick Amirault Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil La Mine 2006

Once again, a lovely Cabernet Franc though unlike my previous taste when it was expressive upon opening, this one only opened up after a few hours. A juicy but leafy scent, refreshing yet sweet. Quite full bodied as far as Loire Cab Franc goes, but deliciously juicy and grippy. I guess the warm year makes it seem a bit low on acid, but the tannins are refreshing and the fruit is lively so the whole is refreshing rather than cloying. Of the all too few Cab Francs available now in Finland this is my favourite. Lovely wine, though young.

Massandra Muscat Kollekcionnoye Koktebel 1989 - Ukraine, Crimea

Fully blind - literally, as Igor served this to me in the black Riedel glass! I smelled red fruit: plums and prunes. It had a good lift to the scent and seemed to me like a bottle aged (as opposed to wood aged) Port with a bit of age on it - I think I said mid-'80s VP as my guess. I was shocked that it not only was white but was from a grape that should have been one of the most obvious. But the great thing about smelling and tasting it from the black glass was that when revealed, I could both get the Muscat aromas AND comprehend the reasons why I guessed vintage Port.

From a normal glass: hazy, orange colour, quite a bit of sediment. A lovely scent of plums and prunes and a general red fruit character, does show classic Muscat aromas of grapeyness, too. Sweet, full bodied, though not hugely acidic nor tannic, it does have a lovely freshness to it that makes it very moreish for a sweet wine. Lovely! A very nice wine with some savouryness to counter the sweetness; especially nice to be able to try it in this unorthodox fashion!
 
That's interesting, Otto......I've been reading up on Massandra wines (the website appears to be selling bottles back to the 20's) but it seems hard to find much else on them except for some obscure articles (one notes a less than successful collection sale attempt at Sotheby's in '04...another -listed below- notes an apparent government granted tax break measure recently....) and what's on a UK importer's site.....I felt like there's more to this story than what little info is online. Is this your first Massandra? They certainly have an interesting variety of offerings.

Kyiv Post

Massandra wine
 
I think that I can add a bit of insight to Massandra conversation. Let me see if I can find my notes from the Yalta comes to Northen Italy wine dinner that occured back in April.

Until I locate those notes, I am happy to share the following:

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www.forkandbottle.com

and

https://flic.kr/p/mSm4e

As well as the following from Frank Martell, originally posted on some other board, who it should be noted had a commercial interest in what he was saying at the time:

"I'm sorry to be joining in so late, hopefully my comments will be useful still.

I returned just a few weeks ago from a week in Yalta, Ukraine, tasting wines at Massandra. In total we tasted 85 wines with the winemaker and general director. We were given free reign over what wines we wanted to taste and so approached it academically, with verticals and horizontals and such, in order to gain as much insight on these wines as possible. We tasted samples from the early 1800's through to 2005. Following my experience, my colleague Poppy looked up existing threads so we could compare notes and so here I am.

In any case, it is amazing how much incorrect information has been disseminated about these wines. I admittedly didn't know a fraction of what I now know, but there is a lot of false information being handed around. If people are interested, I'd be happy to read over the old threads and put right the misinformation that was distributed.

More to the point of your wines, 1986 wasn't a great vintage at Massandra. That said, there aren't ANY bad vintages out there - because they won't make wines that underachieve a minimum level of quality. The trick is, Massandra has over 10,000 hectare under vine in a tropical climate. There are zillions of microclimates therein which means they may not make every wine every year, but the wines they do make are of a certain predictable level of quality - or better.

It is untrue that Gorbachev assaulted the Massandra vineyards. One of his summer homes was in fact just off the vineyards on the south coast. They have been highly prized state property even through the time of Stalin (who in the midst of killing masses handed down commendations to those who had maintained and improved on the property's legacy). In fact, many of their wines are over 150 years old. Most of the vines that have been lost over the years fell not to government cutbacks but to development of Yalta, which is and always has been a resort community. Then again, there are still 10,000 hectare under vine...

It is also untrue that your Kagor is made of cabernet sauvignon. According to the winemaker, most every Kagor is made 100% from the Separavi grape. It is not intended to mimic Cahors, as is commonly believed. In fact, very few of the Massandra wines are intended to mimic. While that was the intention in the very early 1800's, Prince Golitzin (who didn't come into the picture until the late 1800's) quickly learned that it could not be done, but that the tropical climate permitted wines of extremely high quality of a different typicity - hence the move to fortified and dessert wines.

It is further untrue that Golitzin made Massandra. The winery (-ies. This should be pluralized since there are actually 9 estates within the Massandra amalgamation which wasn't formalized until 1936) was actually kickstarted by Mikhail Vorontsov who first decided the region could make wines to compete with European rivals. The one wine that IS related to the wine from which it is named is the Tokay, which is made from at least 50% Furmint year after year.

I wonder which Muscat you had that scored a simple 88 points though. We tasted White Muscat from 2002, 1987, 1975, 1945, 1929, 1928, 1923, and 1915, none of which scored less than 91 pts for me, though there were only 2 that scored even that low. We also tasted Rose Muscat from 2004, 1988, 1945, 1935, 1929, 1924 (and again from half-bottle), 1923 and 1905, one of which scored below 93 points (91+). They make a few different types of Muscat each from several different regions. The Livadia White Muscat is much higher quality than the 'regular' Massandra White Muscat as is the Gurzuf Rose Muscat better than the 'regular' or South Coast Rose Muscat.

Anyway, sorry for the lecture but thats a lot of information, though still incomplete. The most difficult thing about Massandra is that every discussion requires a lecture. Massandra works a lot like burgundy, except in said analogy, one grower would own ALL the Cote d'Or and nobody would know anything about it. The more specific the label, the higher the quality of wine. Consider the below labels to be equivalent.

Burgundy and Massandra counterpart
Bourgogne = Generic Massandra
Village wine = Massandra Crimea or South Coast
1er Cru = Massandra Ayu Dag, Gurzuf, etc.
Grand Cru = Massandra Livadia, Ai-Danil, Alushta, etc.

The Massandra Sherry and Madeira are similar blends of Sercial, Verdelho and Albillo. Proper Sherry and Madeira are not as closely related in varietal composition but at Massandra this was no matter. That said, Massandra Sherry and Madeira are nothing like one another despite the similar assemblage. It is clear that these wines resemble but do not replicate their namesakes (the Massandra version is often better anyway). Massandra Ports and Muscats on the other hand bear less resemblance to their peers, though they still display some components that can be attributed to other Ports and Muscats.

Also crucial to mention is that the top wines of Massandra are every bit as complex and structured as the greats from any region, and therefore contain components found in vastly different wines. Because you smell lead pencil in a California cabernet does not necessarily mean it should remind you of Lafite. Similarly, if parts of a Massandra remind you of Port, it does not mean that the wine was meant to be Taylor Fladgate. For that matter, I kid you not, my notes on the 1978 Massandra Red Port (100% Mourvedre) read in part "...smells like great old burg?! Funky, complex and rich - imagine 1972 Clair Dau Chapelle Chambertin, but fortified."

It can not be said enough that Golitzin's great gift to winemaking in Ukraine was that he knew he couldn't make Bordeaux or Port from his land and vineyards. He knew his wines were going to be different and embraced that it was an addition to wine culture, not an attempt at forgery. His wines and the continuing tradition at Massandra is unique by definition, in process and varietal. Very little has changed since the earlier days, but this is another post to itself.

I do have a lot more notes (one for each of 85 wines) but they are not yet in user-friendly format. Perhaps when I pull it all together I'll start a new thread for those who are interested."

Hope this is helpful.
Frank Martell
International Director Fine & Rare Wines
Bonhams & Butterfields
 
Also, I would note that one of the funny things about our particular taste through, which had examples from the 20s, 30s, and 50s, and included Muscat, Red Port, Cahors, and Madiera, was how much the alcohol levels varied on the different bottlings.
 
I know that mentioning non-French, European chardonnay is seriously politically incorrect, but Enate 234 (DO Somontano) is, for around 8 euros a bottle in Europe, a wonderfully refreshing chard - no oak at all - and only 13.5 percent alcohol, Otto! (BTW, Marimar Torres is Spanish too...)
 
originally posted by Levi Dalton:
Also, I would note that one of the funny things about our particular taste through, which had examples from the 20s, 30s, and 50s, and included Muscat, Red Port, Cahors, and Madiera, was how much the alcohol levels varied on the different bottlings.
Click to expand...

I would be interested to read any notes of your tasting session, Levi. Overall, would you say you were left with a rather variable impression of the quality as well?

I suppose that at least in part, the varying alcohol levels could be attributed to the various "styles" Massandra produces (website lists their product line -not necessarily illuminatingly- in this order: "red wines", "white wines", "dessert wines", "table wines", "fortified wines".....and, before the names were trademarked, they freely used "Madeira","Port", "Sherry" etc.....well, still are using in fact, with legal caveats noted...) but it seems like there is less rhyme or reason even within these categories, regarding everything: alcohol levels, acidity, residual sugar...even grape varieties used. Maybe I am just intrigued by the "story" and the oddness of it all (plus a few unusual grapes grown and thrown into extreme situations).

Reading thru the pdf of the 2007 auction lots, the results of which were linked at fork and bottle, (and showed what appear to be much better results than the '04 auction at sotheby's....albeit more than half the lots went to one buyer) left me with the impression of a substantially variable qualitative level of wines...and fork and bottle tn's seem to point in a similar direction.

I don't doubt that some of these wines could potentially be remarkable (as Otto's note indicates), but I can't escape thinking there's a little (or a lot) of hocus pocus in the current PR dept. I'm curious nonetheless...how were the wines presented to you at the tasting in April, and did you find them worthy of more interest than mere curiosity?
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
originally posted by Levi Dalton:
Also, I would note that one of the funny things about our particular taste through, which had examples from the 20s, 30s, and 50s, and included Muscat, Red Port, Cahors, and Madiera, was how much the alcohol levels varied on the different bottlings.
Click to expand...

I would be interested to read any notes of your tasting session, Levi. Overall, would you say you were left with a rather variable impression of the quality as well?...I'm curious nonetheless...how were the wines presented to you at the tasting in April, and did you find them worthy of more interest than mere curiosity?
Click to expand...

I guess I should explain that the dinner in April was basically something that I arranged myself, with the help of a compadre with whom I have shared some conversation about Massandra wines over the years, and who has been nice enough to share with me bottles that have come his way over the same period. Massandra is a bit of an off the beaten track subject. A lot of people who have immersed themselves in the subject of wine have never heard of Massandra, in my experience. I had an inkling early on in my professional drinking career, because about 10 years ago when I got my first job as a sommelier, there was some Massandra Red Port in the cellar of the restaurant I was working in (Thor's favorite restaurant of all time, as it happens), and I got to try it. Wanting to be able to talk about the wine with guests, I did all the research I could on the producer back at that time (there is a writeup in the Oxford Companion to Wine, btw). So knowing something about the wines I was able later down the line to talk about them with someone who is very involved in the wholesale trade here in New York, someone who has also had a lot of interest in the wines. That person has made a study of Massandra prices on the market. Awhile back he scored some Muscat based wines from the 50s and 60s. Those were drinking great. Then when the financial markets hit the skids, the prices for more marginal auction items like Massandra wines hit very approachable levels, and my friend and I got some cash together and went in on a few bottles from earlier in this century to showcase over a smallish dinner amongst other people who also had an interest. Which is what we did in April. It was a great dinner. Perhaps the best since the Fiorano dinner of yore, for myself. I thought the Cahors was the standout of the evening, but it almost had a chinato quality to it, like it might have been aromatized. I also liked one of the Muscat bottlings we had quite a bit. I'll try to get to those notes when time allows.

Anyway, I don't think it is hype, I think the wines are of real interest, and I think that if you can buy them knowledgeably amongst the jumble, and at a good price, then they are well worth your time and attention. But I would say that they aren't in my experience, beholden of the kinds of subtlety that you might associate with great Musigny, for instance. They are a bit more straightforward than that.
 
That puts quite a bit into perspective for me, Levi, thanks. I think the lack of easily googled information, coupled with Martell's somewhat erratic notes in the pdf....and even the vague-ish notes on the Massandra website (for example, the red ports: "Produced from Cabernet Sauvignon (Livadia), Mourvedre (Massandra) or a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Saperavi, Morastel, Magaratchsky, Bastardo and Aleatico.") added up to several question marks for me. That's great that you and a buddy were able to finally put that together and give several wines a taste thru. Looking thru the portfolio at Massandra, I thought I could risk $42-ish on a '59 (birthyear) port, for the heck of it...if shipping doesn't kill me. Would of course love to sample many others....and your comments about the style of the product(s) pretty much fit the picture I'm gathering of the wines. Further questions remain with regard to the winemaking practices, climate and plethora of vineyards and grapes. It all seems very unique, even eccentric. But I suspect those are topics for another day.
 
As one fortunate enough to have been at Levi's dinner, I would say that "unique, even eccentric" covers it well.

And that was just the company.
 
Levi, thanks, fascinating read. This is the only Massandra I have had and have only read about potentially amazing wines. Silly to even mention it, but there is that Chekhov - Yalta connection that made drinking this an even more memorable event.
 
I went to a dinner at Meadowood in May, featuring 3 old Massandra wines. Bob Collins at Old Vine Imports is directly importing wines from there and he put together a dinner at that restaurant. The 1923 Madeira "Kuchuk-Uzen" was poured as an aperitif. Definitely a Sercial in style, and quite complex. It would be interesting to compare it to the real thing. My immediate reaction to 1929 Tokay "Potemkin Al-Danil" was that of blackberry sorbet with a bit rose petal thrown in for good measure. The balance was impeccable. The last wine was 1914 Malaga, one of only 3 vintages that Malaga was made (others being 1891 and 1915). It was still incredibly sweet and viscous, but not cloying. However, a little bit went a long way. It was a little fatiguing to drink after a few sips. My sweet tooth tends not to go towards the Port/Sauternes end of the spectrum so your mileage may vary.

One odd thing was that even though the Madeira and Tokay labels were of the same design, the former was in Russian/Cyrillic and the latter in English. The Malaga didn't have a label.
 
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