Current cold front be damned, it is mid-May and hot days of picnics, cottages, and bbqs are just around the corner. With parties and patios calling, it is the perfect time to tell you about our newest general list release at the LCBO, Grooner ($12.95/btl, Product Number: 168625).

The wine is made from the Grüner Veltliner grape, the number one white wine grape of Austria. If you like the light, crisp style of Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio, this wine is for you.

Crafted by famous Austrian winemaker Meinhard Furstreiter, Grooner is made to be refreshing and easy drinking. With apple and citrus on the palate, this zippy wine is the perfect pairing for a wide range of food from salads, to grilled vegetables, to spicy or fried dishes, to light meat and fish. The great label and screw cap, not to mention impressive affordability, add to the appeal of the wine.

Introduced to the US market in 2008, Grooner has gotten great reviews. The New York Times wine writer Howard Goldberg declared that Grooner had “ hit the bull’s eye”, a “zippy and peppery” wine with a “delicious aftertaste that goes on and on”.  I can’t wait to introduce this wine to friends and bring it along to parties. We hope you’ll love it as much as we do!  

-Nicole

Last week something rare and wonderful befell on our humble agency. At Lifford we are lucky enough to be constantly surrounded by great wines; In fact, the majority of my desk is currently taken up by bottles of Wild Rock, Arboleda and a giant bottle of Nicolas Feuillatte champagne, for good measure. However, rarely do we get an opportunity to try the Bordeaux Premier Cru wines on an unassuming Wednesday in May.

Paul Pontallier, the General Director of Chateau Margaux was in town for a wine-makers dinner at Scaramouche and he stopped by Lifford to taste and talk with our noticeably excited agents. Having recently seen the BBC documentary Wine: The Faith, which focuses on the 2008 vintage at Margaux, I must admit I was slightly star-struck by the incredibly polished French man. However, he quickly assuaged any worry by his calm, knowledgeable demeanor and encouragement of questions. If Bordeaux is all about politics, and with its rigid classification system and ever ballooning prices who could say otherwise, this is a man who is a master of his trade, carrying himself with an air of confident power, but approachability that is reminiscent of great politicians.

We began by tasting the 2008 Pavillon Blanc, Margaux’s second label (they have three in total). The Pavillon Blanc is 100% Sauvignon Blanc, but don’t expect a traditional nose. No wonder, Paul stressed that they work hard to remove any vegetal quality from the wine, while limiting alcohol, and only utilizing the best grapes (discarding up to 60%). The result is a full-bodied, complex wine that maintains freshness and incredible drinkability (e.g., it was yummy!).  Margaux’s whites were not always so good, and it was interesting to hear Paul talk about how much effort they had taken into improving the wine’s quality. When asked about the wines potential to age, after a caveat on increased complexity over time, Paul concluded that this was a wine to drink young (plus, how else would you buy more next year!?).

The next wine on the list was the ’06 Pavillon Rouge. This is Margaux’s (slightly) more accessible second label that they have been making since 1997. To give you an idea of production, Margaux deems 25% of their red grapes unworthy of the Margaux name, selling them in bulk. Of the grapes that remain, 30% are used in Margaux, the top blend, 40% in Pavillon Rouge, and the remaining 30% are used in the third label that doesn’t make it to Canada. The Pavillon Rouge did not taste like any old second label, and it shouldn’t coming in at around $130/btl. It had great fruit, acidity and balance with a luscious finish. I think I was most impressed with the soft tannins and elegance of the wine, a trait that Paul informed us was the trademark of Margaux. When asked how the wine achieved such strength while maintaining softness, Paul responded it was simply “terroir”, and something they’ve always had. What, not micro-oxygenation and fancy-shmancy winery tricks?! If so, we were certainly not going to hear about them. Paul instead espoused the organic nature of his wine-production, which was akin to raising children. It was the wine-makers job to let the grapes grow, see who they were and how they wanted to express themselves. From there the wine-makers job was to give the grapes the possibility to realize their own potential. How French!

The third wine in our tasting was the Chateau Margaux ’04, composed primarily of Cabernet Sauvignon from only the most “privileged plots”. On the nose, the difference in complexity and quality from the Pavillon Rouge was marked. Leather, spice, and dark fruit intensely wafted to my happy olfactory bulbs. On the palate I was again struck by the seemingly contradictory density and softness of the wine. Despite the ’04 having the bad luck of being sandwiched between the great vintages of ’03 and ’05, the ’04 was showing beautifully.

Interestingly the topic shifted to global warming and it’s potential effect on Margaux. In an impressive show of polished rhetoric, Paul insisted that there was absolutely “no local consequence of global warming”. Instead, it seems global warming is the best thing that has ever happened to the region, the increased sun and warmth resulting in grapes regularly reaching levels of maturity that were only previously reached in the best vintages. Winemaking practices have also changed greatly over the years. While in the past, winemakers in Bordeaux had an attitude of fatalism when bad weather hit, resulting in some horrible vintages, now adopting such an attitude of  “oh well, bad vintage” is not an option. Winemakers fight tooth and nail until the day of harvest to ensure the best wine possible. In fact, eschewing tradition Margaux even has a Research and Development team! Well, maybe it is only one woman conducting experiments, but no matter, it is no longer enough to just have terroir, the best viticulture practices are essential for success. 

The fourth and final wine we tried was the ’96 Margaux, one of the classically famous vintages of the region. While exhibiting more density and complexity, again the character of elegant strength was prominent. Paul commented on the drinkability of all of his wines, for it is the “pleasure of drinking that is the key to greatness”. Thus Margaux wines are made to be a pleasure to drink on “day one of bottling”, a contrast, to say the least, from traditional Bordeaux blends, which require age to soften and become enjoyable. Sipping the dregs of the bottle at the end of the day, I sighed loudly, smiled sweetly, and thought, “boy oh boy do I ever love my job”.

-Nicole

By Nicole Campbell i.e., Bosses Daughter, Baby Belle (we like cheese), Little Lifford, Office Slave. 

We had a very busy week at Lifford Wine, so packed full of events that I am about ready for a serious nap and an IV of espresso. It doesn’t help that Lucy the 1der Dog, our office pooch, is dreaming sweet dreams of cottages and bones at my feet.

But busy is great when you are surrounded with yummy wine and passionate people. All this week we have been lucky enough to host David Marco, owner of Marco Abella winery in Priorat. On Monday he came into the office for a tasting with our staff and to tell us the background of his family-owned operation. 

David’s story is fantastic. He grew up in Barcelona and studied engineering in university. When he wasn’t happy in engineering he was onto the next path, an MBA degree. Despite doing well in the business world, David still hadn’t found what truly inspired him. His family owned land in the village of Porrera, in the Priorat region, since the 15^th century. David decided to plant 30 hectares of vines with the sole aim of selling grapes to other producers, more as a business aspiration than out of any wish to make his own wine.

Yet David wasn’t planting in just any region. Priorat, located 130 km south of Barcelona is a stunning microclimate, surrounded by mountains. The vines are planted on steep slopes ranging from 200 to 1,500 m of altitude. Each vine stretches deep into the ground, searching for nutrients amongst the grey slate known as lliorella, key in the region’s terroir. David was adamant that the grapes be planted, tended to and harvested using only the best, most scientifically proven methods (he was an engineer after all!). This meant organic farming with biodynamic practices, not as a marketing tool to put on the label, but because these practices resulted in the best grapes possible.

By 2001, David was no longer happy to sell what he now knew to be fantastic grapes and took the big leap- opening his own winery nestled amongst the vine-laden hills in 2005. Using the aid of gravity and only indigenous yeasts, the winery employs modern and traditional techniques of winemaking. The result? Really, really good wines. Like, seriously good.

We are currently selling two of their wines, Mas Mallola and Clos Abella. Both are made primarily from Priorat’s classical grapes Cariñena, and Garnatxa, with a little bit of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. Mas Mallola, at $42.50 a bottle, is the fresher, more fruit-forward expression of the region with cherry and spice on the nose and gentle tannins. Easy drinking with great acidity, I could instantly see myself pairing this with many meals or having a glass (or two) by itself. The Clos Abella ($69.95/btl), is their top wine and the essential expression of the region’s terroir. The nose has so much going on I found myself sniffing obsessively. Dark fruit, spice, mineral, coffee, and deliciousness mixed together to make me smile. Firm tannins balanced by great fruit and a long finish give this wine the structure to age, but it is also drinking beautifully now.

This topic reminds me of a story once told to me by a wine sales manager from Atlanta. He said that successful restaurateurs from the American North East were coming into the Atlanta market and setting up beautiful, UNsuccessful restaurants. He told me of his desire to set up his very own consulting service to help these misguided, over confident aspiring marketers of the latest culinary fads. It was a very simple service that he would provide. The first and only question was how much money they were prepared to spend to build their temple of gastronomy. They would answer in the millions of dollars and he would then respond to each and every one with  “I would like to save you 90% of your investment. Yes, all you need to do is hire me as your advisor for 10% of budget and I will save you the rest by advising you not to build the restaurant in the first place.” He wanted to save them millions of dollars!
I feel the same way about food and wine matching and I will tell you why.

First thing we learn in food and wine matching is that there are rules. They seem simple enough. White food requires white wine and if it is small, like  fish, it needs a small white wine. Red, well that is easy too as it goes with red meat.  If it is game you're having, you bring out the big Shiraz, while rabbit would be be best with Beaujolais.  So I took these rules and ran a ten year experiment at my winebar, Delisle, from 1985 to 1995. And I admit that after ten years I was confused.  If there were rules, why did they not work consistently?  And if they were not consistent, what kind of rules were they?

Delisle was a crazy wine place and we did countless wine events and dinners with people such as Marcel Guigal, Jean-Pierre Perrin, Warren Winarski, and way too many more to begin to mention.  Many celebrity chefs such as Didier Leroy, Chris Macdonald and Susar Lee made guest appearances. I only had one aim and that was to set the highest standards when it came to the matching of the cuisine to these fabulous wines with these top notch chefs. I would meet with the chefs and they would take notes as we tasted every single wine. We would scheme and plan and come up with what we thought were the combinations that would blow our customers away.

Trouble is that they didn’t. Do not get me wrong, we had countless enthusiastic comments on the perfect matches but we also often had people commenting that it was not their favourite match. But there are rules; you are supposed to like this combination.  I mean, there are rules? Did I misinterpret something? Where did I fail?  I had no answers.
No, I am not that smart. I was like one of those North Eastern carpetbaggers. I thought I knew. It was only after I sold Delise and entered the wine importing business and had the pleasure of meeting one Tim Hanni that I began to understand. As a Master of Wine, Tim knows a lot more about wine and food matching that I did, so I quizzed him as to why these rules did not seem to work.

Tim laughed at me. How could they work? We are all human with our individualistic tastes.  None of us will react in exactly the same way to anything. Think about it, you may love Rock & Roll or Metal, or Classical or Folk or Ethnic or Roots etc. You might like Monet or Degas or Picasso or Dali or Warhol  etc. You might like your coffee black or double double or anything in between.  Are you a carnivore, a locavour or a vegan?
We are all unique individuals and being unique we have unique tastes on all things sensual.

So let me save you a million dollars and let you in on a little secret.
Food and wine can complement each other magnificently but there are no hard and fast rules that will work for every setting and every person.
So do not stress about it too much.  Eat what you like and drink what you like and you will probably really enjoy your repast.

It is a cold winter night between Christmas and New Years and I am feeling the need for some inner warmth to stoke the internal furnace up a degree or two. I trot down to the cellar and discover a still wrapped bottle of Barolo 1997 ‘Castelletto’ from Gigi Rosso.  Gigi Rosso has been in the Lifford portfolio for decades and the 1997 vintage was considered a terrific one. After the bitter harvests of the early nineties, Barolo lovers worldwide were clamouring for such a heralded year. Interest reached such a peak that several producers offered Barolo futures, an unheard of practice in Piemonte before or since.

Gigi Rosso was actually the very first vintner to offer his wines on a futures basis and I personally purchased several cases. This bottle of single vineyard Barolo ‘Castelletto’ is from one of one of those cases and I am glad I made the investment. The vineyard was replanted in 1981 on southwest facing hills. In 1997 at 16 years of age, the vineyard was in its prime.

In the world of wine, great vineyard sites are rarer than a wine professional without attitude. In all of Barolo, there are less than 1,600 acres of vineyards where Nebiolo, the grape varietal responsible, reaches it apogee. To make matters more difficult, despite best efforts, Nebiolo does not feel comfortable in foreign climes and rarely do you find a Nebiolo out of the region that rivals Barolo.

So what makes the terroir of Piemonte so unique?  First a lesson in language.  "Pied" is foot and "monte" well reasonably enough means mountains, thus Piemonte is foothills.  Barolo is situated in the southern foothills of the Alps and cool winds from the north provide relief from intense summer heat. Grapes do best when not over heated in the summer and that is why ocean/mountain breezes are important elements in terroir from Barossa to Napa to Barolo.  Then there is the soil. Barolo shares their limestone sub soil with Burgundy, Coonawarra and the Clare Valley to name a few. Limestone in all those regions adds a delicacy to the wines. They are rich in flavor but with sufficient acidity to keep them fresh and delicious from one glass to the next.

One of the reasons I love the Rosso family is that first of all they had the good sense to purchase phenomenal vineyard sites when no one wanted them, and secondly, they had the brilliance to let the grapes and the vineyard make the wine. Basically unknown in North America, this small winery is quietly turning out remarkable wines, and relative to other producers, selling them for a song.

Today the estate is run by Gigi’s two brilliant sons, Maurizio, author of many books including a guide to Barolo, and Claudio who finds the spare time to be chairman of the local Barolo consortium.