We had a rather historic family get-together in Louisville, it was historic for the fact that all five sisters and spouses plus the matriarch were all there at the same time. With work schedules and such, there is a better chance of getting everyone together in the Detroit area for one of the holidays. Somehow, it was achieved and a grand time it was. There were some harrowing tales of driving in Ohio. Between the construction, the ability of trucks to stay in the passing lane for miles and the ever-vigilant state police who have a mission in life to try to ticket every vehicle from the state of Michigan, especially if one of the varied teams comes in second to any of the teams just north of them.
The reason that we were all getting together was to see the twins probably perform together for the last time, since they will graduate this June and go on to different universities. The twins had the two leads in the Disney and Cameron Mackintosh production of Mary Poppins Jr. The difference of Mary Poppins and Mary Poppins Jr. is that the Junior production is for school versions for Kindergarten to Twelfth Grade. The first wave came on Thursday and the second wave of family came on Friday for the weekend. In actuality, my Bride and I were probably lucky that she had to attend a conference that day, because we almost got there the same time as some that started several hours earlier, because they hit more construction and rush hour traffic. Our hosts for the weekend were manning the kitchen island heroically for all the stragglers, as they had dinner ready for everyone, and they had also arranged to get a block of rooms nearby for all of us to stay.
Somehow, my Brother-in-Law saved a very healthy glassful of wine for me, as we walked in, and I might add that it was not a run of the mill variety, but one that he won at a charity event. He had saved me a glass of Cakebread Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2013. The winery was founded in 1973 by Jack and Dolores Cakebread, and then it expanded in 1982 when they purchased adjacent land. Cakebread Cellars now has fifteen estate vineyards and have maintained a status quo since 2005. The wine is eighty-three percent Cabernet Sauvignon and the balance is a careful blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. The wine was aged for eighteen months in French Oak, of which sixty percent was new, and fifty-six percent of the fruit came from estate vineyards. I am not sure if it was the five hours in the car, but that wine just hit the spot, even before I had a chance to eat, it was just a perfectly honed Cabernet Sauvignon and there were no complaints. After that, and I realize that it is backwards, but it is how things go in life, we finished the evening with a white wine. We had a most appropriate wine for Kentucky and I think it was the third wine, and a third varietal that was aged this way that I have had. We were enjoying glasses of Robert Mondavi Private Selection Aged in Bourbon Barrels Chardonnay Monterey County 2017. Robert Mondavi founded his winery in 1966 and offers wines across the board for all tastes and price points. I really could not find anything on this particular wine and I don’t know if it was done, as a gimmick, to keep up with some of the other winery offerings, but it was a nice mellow wine and this was the first Chardonnay that I had done this way. Even my Bride was happy and that is important. More wine and adventures await from our time in Kentucky.
I will mention the first and the last wine of the tasting now, instead of proceeding in a more orderly fashion as I did that afternoon. In 1993, just three years after the world saw that Communism and Socialism did not work in the former Soviet Hungarian Republic, the Alvarez family that had bought Vega-Sicilia founded Tokaji-Oremus, but respecting the time-honored traditions of the district. The region known as Tokaj is actually twenty-seven municipalities and land, but Tokaj is the major city of the area. The history of Oremus goes back to 1620 and they are credited with making the first Aszu wine as well. When I was first learning about wine, I had always wanted to try all the versions of Tokaji wines, but back then it was the Cold War and the Communists ran a monopoly on the wines of all of the countries that they ruled by the jackboot and intimidation. Rumor has it that Pepsi Cola was an un-official conduit for wines and spirits behind the Iron Curtain for years, keeping the United States in Stolichnaya and Monimpex Tokaji. While there are a couple of different varietals that are grown in this region, the main one is Furmint. Furmint produces a highly acidic juice that when nurtured can develop into one of the longest-lived wines known.
We started with a glass of Oremus Furmint Mandolas Tokaji Dry 2014, a curious wine that has become popular in this century, because it is a dry wine. This wine is named for the vineyard that the grapes come from and it is only planted with Furmint. This is a golden grape that buds late and because of a peculiar trait has one of the potentially longest growing cycles and is very labor intensive. The grapes are delicately pressed and the fermentation process can take eight to ten days and then the wine is aged in small oak barrels, which is the traditional way. Even though this is a dry white wine, and can be enjoyed immediately, it can be aged for about ten years. The wine delivered a curious blend of floral and smoke and was full flavored with a good finish. After four red wines we enjoyed a glass of Oremus Tokaji Aszu 5 Puttonyos 2006. Now here is where the Furmint grape and the wine known as Tokaji are most celebrated. Tokaji Aszu can only be found when Mother Nature allows the elements of weather to be ideal to create an Aszu vintage. The berries swollen due to the humidity split and the “Botrytis cinérea” establishes in its skin and creates the noble rot. This procedure has been going on for hundreds of years. The special grapes with the noble rot are collected in special baskets which are known as Puttonyos, and the number of these special baskets are then added to the already crushed grapes. I have quoted this passage from Oremus to explain the next step “The fermentation of the Aszú must is a slow process that can sometimes last up to two months. It is then put into wood barrels and is left in a protected wine press, waiting for the fermentation to stop by itself. We then add a little Eszencia, which has been collected drop by drop from the Aszú berries. We thus symbolically return its soul, which is embodied in the Eszencia.” The wine is left to age for two to three years and then it is aged in the bottle for an additional year, before it is released. This wine is a blend of several varietals of which the lion’s share is the Furmint. There is also the Harslevelu which adds mildness and floral notes, the Sarga Muskotaly (Yellow Muscat) with its distinctive nose, the Zeta which lends robustness to the blend. They are also traditionalists and are growing some varietals that were prior to the phylloxera blight and that is the Koverszolo and the Goher, but both are in limited areas. There were 23,400 bottles produced of this wine and it could be cellared for forty years. This was just a big wine, it was floral, chewy, robust with enough terroir to please the fussiest taster, with a nice smooth lingering finish and even a bit of pepper at the end to lure one into another taste. And now I can think of the wines that were in between.
The Wine Raconteur 