I’ve been referring to a particular tea to which I compared the previous Assam samples as my “Gold Standard.” To make sure that I wasn’t falsely imagining it better than it was, I tasted it using the same method as the new arrivals. The verdict – it’s still the Gold Standard. Unfortunately, it’s totally unavailable. No one, anywhere, carries tea from this estate anymore.
So, without any further ado:
Singlijan Estate Assam TGFOP1
Dry Aroma: floral and fruity
Brewed Aroma: tree fruit, malty, creamy, citrus
Color: dark copper
Flavor: malty, savory, fruity, with citrus notes and floral finish
Sweetened: fruit and citrus enhanced, with honey notes
Overall: This tea is very balanced, with restrained tannins that play well with the other flavor components. It leaves your palate clean, with a long, lingering finish of apple, lemon, and honey. The mellow tannins allow the natural sweetness to come through. Complex flavor, appealing aroma, and general good behavior make this my far and away favorite. 5 out of 5.
A week and a half ago, I posted the first part of my Assam tea reviews. While I haven’t found a new favorite, there was an interesting variety that I might add to my regular rotation. The second round of tastings is complete, and I’m not sure we’ve made any improvements.
Koilamari Estate TGFOP1
Dry Aroma: fruit/citrus
Brewed Aroma: malty, citrus
Color: deep reddish-brown
Flavor: malty, slightly cooked-fruity, good body and solid tannins, with a leathery and floral finish
Sweetened: maltier and leather notes more pronounced
The tannins in this tea are assertive when brewed for 4 ½ minutes. The citrus in the aroma doesn’t carry through into the palate. The tannins tended to overwhelm the other flavors, so perhaps a shorter brewing time is called for. However, the body was just about right at this length, so shortening brewing to attenuate the tannins may leave the liquor thin. Showed promise, but ultimately disappointed. 3 ½ out of 5.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Zinfandel. It’s a vividly dark purple grape that unfortunately sees most of its utility in pedestrian, sweet “white” Zins of miscellaneous and anonymous vintage. White zin made from this dark grape, but the juice is not fermented with the skins. It is the quintessential non-wine-drinker’s wine, the base for summer spritzers and the refuge of someone who’d rather be drinking an alcopop. When treated well, however, the Zinfandel grape produces big, burly, fruit-driven wines with flavors of black fruit, spice, and licorice. Zinfandel is genetically identical to the varietal that Italians call Primitivo.
BV Napa Valley Zinfandel is an affordable wine: $13-14 most days. Beaulieu wines are generally solid, but not necessarily outstanding in their field. Zins are usually pretty big with lots of tannin structure, so before tasting this I poured it into a decanter, to sit for a little under two hours prior to sampling.
Details:
Name: Beaulieu Vineyards 2004 Zinfandel, Napa Valley
Type: Red Country: California Region: Napa Grapes: 100% Zinfandel Price: $14
The summer heat is going the way of the summer sun, which to me always signals a transition to drinking more tea as opposed to coffee. I drink coffee all year ’round, but more so when it’s warmer. Tea is a calming fall and winter ritual – dried leaves invoking those scattered about by autumn winds, the boiling of water in the kettle and the aromatic brew in the pot. Tea invokes comfort. While summer’s activity goes well with coffee’s rush, longer nights and slower paces require a more gentle touch. So, with this in mind, I ordered up a whole box full of tea samples in preparation for placing my winter orders.
The first set I’m going to look at consists of eight teas from the Assam region of India, which I’ll be dividing into two tastings. Assam teas are made from a variety of Camelia sinensis native to the area (var. assamica), and are characterized by their dark color, rich body, and round malty flavors. Also, unlike many other teas, Assams are typically grown at or near sea level instead of on elevated hillsides. This contributes to their deep flavors and assertive character. My current gold standard for Assam is the currently unavailable TGFOP leaf from the Singlijan tea estate – rich, smooth, malty, and complex, with fruit, cocoa, and citrus notes. If it doesn’t become available again, I’ll be very sad when I’m out. So, I’m looking for its replacement in my tea chest.
My tasting method: Tea is measured out at 2.5g to each 6 oz. of water. Black teas are brewed with water at a full boil, oolongs at 185-190°F, green teas at 170-180°F, and white teas no hotter than 160°F. Brewing times are slightly shorter than those recommended by the vendor in most cases, as the tea is brewed in a 12-ounce iron tetsubin-style pot that allows for a much more thorough extraction than an infuser or tea ball. The liquor is initially tasted plain, then sweetened with white table sugar in the case of Indian black teas. I don’t normally take milk in my tea, so I don’t sample it that way.
Borpatra Estate STGFOP1S
Dry Aroma: herbal/floral
Brewed Aroma: green herbal, leathery, malt husk
Flavor: bright, slightly tannic, lightly floral (chrysanthemum/daisy)
Sweetened: enhances floral components
Body: smooth, medium weight
Color: dark amber / copper
Pleasant enough, but to my palate lacks the body and depth characteristic of Assam teas. Brewed with water off the boil for 4.5 minutes. Brewing longer would enhance the tannic astringency that’s starting to show here, perhaps this needs a slightly lower temp along with longer extraction. Rating: 3½ out of 5.
You pitch your wines as a boutique product, with prices to match. I’m not going to pay $20+ a bottle for wine that’s quite obviously inferior to $7 California plonk I can pick up at any wine shop. I’m not going to go out of my way for your products, because they don’t offer anything more than a warm fuzzy feeling for supporting local producers. That isn’t enough. Goodwill only goes so far.
I spent a day at the Maryland Wine Festival in Westminster, MD on the 21st of September. I visited the tents of every winery there. Of the 3 hours I spent sampling wine, I found fewer than a half dozen that were even average examples of their type. There were many horrible wines – oxidized whites with sherry aromas, bitter reds, sharp, sour, and tasteless varietals that poorly represented their key characteristics, and dessert wines that taste little better than slightly alcoholic grocery-store grape juice. In this day and age, there is no excuse for producing undrinkable wine, but you all are managing it with aplomb.
No wonder sweet wines are your biggest sellers – your dry table wines are just not good. Do you even drink wine? Do you appreciate what makes wine appealing, and what qualities make up a good wine? Do you really believe that your products compare favorably to those readily available to the wine consumer? I find it hard to believe that you can honestly, and with a straight face, put a Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc out on the market for $15-25 that lacks the even a hint of the balance of fruit and acid, minerality and toastiness that even the most average $10-14 bottle from New Zealand, California, or Italy offers. If the examples I tasted this weekend are the best you can manage, you are delusional.
Flaunt your Governor’s Cup medals all you want – they’re bloody meaningless and they’re awarded in unseemly volume. I’d really be interested in seeing those scores, because there are gold- and silver-medal winners listed here that I immediately dumped after the first taste, as they were wretched. The state agriculture folks need to stop rewarding bad product – you as winemakers need a reality check, and the state organizations need to stop cheerleading for inferior goods. It does you and the state of Maryland no favors.
Stop trying to grow Pinot Noir. It all sucks. It is a very challenging grape, and Maryland does not have the climate nor terroir to support good Pinot. Just because it’s the hot varietal doesn’t mean you should plant it. Retire your DVD of Sideways and leave Pinot Noir to the Willamette Valley, Santa Barbara, Sonoma County, and Burgundy. Neither does Cabernet Sauvignon do all that well here – it’s thin and lacks body. It’s best blended with other varietals, not sold as a pure alternative to the excellent offerings from Napa. Riesling requires cool summers and mild transitions to colder weather to develop their famous acidity – our hot summers produce flabby Rieslings.
Find varietals that do well here in the Mid-Atlantic and exploit them to their fullest. Take a cue from Virginia and pursue perfecting Cabernet Franc and Viognier, grapes that seem to thrive on Mid-Atlantic hillsides. Your Chardonnays are middling, and that can be helped with better treatment in the winery, especially through eschewing aging in wood. Italian grapes like Sangiovese and Barbera show some promise. Stop trying to be Napa Valley. Maryland is not Napa, not Sonoma – it’s Maryland.
Oak is not your savior. Oak is not a magic spell that makes poor wine good. Please, please, please quit over-oaking your wines. I got so sick of smelling funky, overwhelmingly woody oak barrels every time I lifted a glass to my nose. I don’t want to taste barrel, I want to taste fruit and acidity and grape tannins, with oak’s vanilla components as a complement. I don’t want to feel like I’m chewing a mouthful of oak chips along with every sip. I don’t want to be roughed up with a two-by-four in every glass. More oak does not equal more quality or more class. Learn what the hell stainless steel tanks are good for. Limit the amount of time your wines spend in wood, or use older casks. Right now, the signature Maryland wine characteristic is not that of the vineyard or winery, but that of a lumberyard.
If you’re going to pretend to being serious winemakers, get serious. Find out what works, and take maximum advantage of it. Drop varietals that have no business growing in our climate. If your wines cannot stand alone without massive amounts of oaking to add body, then you need to fix that. If you really love wine, show it.
Because right now, you’re a joke. Your wines are an insult.
The Sauvignon Blanc grape can produce wines ranging from steely austerity to citrus zestiness. In the Loire Valley of France, this grape is the queen of the white wine varietals, producing two of its most well known appelations, though more Chenin Blanc is grown overall. The regions of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé sit in the eastern part of the valley, across the Loire River from each other. Sancerre sits to the West, Pouilly-Fumé to the east. Sancerre produces delicate wines with a pronounced minerality. Pouilly-Fumé wines offer more rounded, fuller flavors of the grape.
This Blanchet 2007 comes out of a small 8-acre winery in the heart of the Pouilly-Fumé region, and goes wonderfully with fish and seafood. It would also complement summer salads with bitter greens and vinaigrette dressings, but not likely those with fruit. I can also see this pairing well with pastas tossed with vegetables or seafood, dressed with olive oil.
Details:
Name: Gilles Blanchet 2007 Pouilly-Fumé
Type: White Country: France Region: Loire Grapes: 100% Sauvignon Blanc Price: $17
Rob: Dude – what did you think cookies were made out of? They’re a butter and sugar delivery device. Almost every sugar cookie recipe is in a 1:1:1 ratio of butter to sugar to egg. And...
gorge: TWO STICKS BUTTER, TWO CUPS SUGAR AND TWO EGG YOLKS!!! AND YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT PACKAGED BROCCOLI. GIVE ME A BREAK! I HAD A HEART ATTACK BY JUST READING IT.
Eric Hundin: I found your blog on MSN Search. Nice writing. I will check back to read more. Eric Hundin
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I’ve always had a soft spot for Zinfandel. It’s a vividly dark purple grape that unfortunately sees most of its utility in pedestrian, sweet “white” Zins of miscellaneous and anonymous vintage. White zin made from this dark grape, but the juice is not fermented with the skins. It is the quintessential non-wine-drinker’s wine, the base for summer spritzers and the refuge of someone who’d rather be drinking an alcopop. When treated well, however, the Zinfandel grape produces big, burly, fruit-driven wines with flavors of black fruit, spice, and licorice. Zinfandel is genetically identical to the varietal that Italians call Primitivo.
The Sauvignon Blanc grape can produce wines ranging from steely austerity to citrus zestiness. In the Loire Valley of France, this grape is the queen of the white wine varietals, producing two of its most well known appelations, though more Chenin Blanc is grown overall. The regions of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé sit in the eastern part of the valley, across the Loire River from each other. Sancerre sits to the West, Pouilly-Fumé to the east. Sancerre produces delicate wines with a pronounced minerality. Pouilly-Fumé wines offer more rounded, fuller flavors of the grape.