Some Thing to Count On

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been asked my favorite wine, I would almost be a rich man. But riches elude me, because I won’t even try to answer. Lately I’ve been thinking I could be living in the South of France if I raised my price to two bits, but I still couldn’t do it.

I suggest to the questioner that it’s easier to talk about the wines I’ve recently tasted or the wines we’re serving as the Olken house pour at the moment or even which wineries are really consistent.

This last question is particularly important. I would never say any winery is so good that one should buy its wines untasted, but there are reliable producers whose wines are worth buying more often than not.

Some, like Paoletti (whose Cabernets were recommended in these pages a few columns ago), are small and their wines are hard to find. Others, such as the four mentioned here, have bigger productions, and their wines are more likely to be available from good wine merchants. And their prices, though not exactly low, have generally not climbed into the stratosphere.

Babcock Vineyards, Santa Barbara County. Bryan Babcock and his family have chosen vineyard property at the cold western edge of the Santa Ynez Valley between the ocean and Los Olivos, but Babcock readily admits that he shops as many as 20 vineyards all over the county in his pursuit of the best grapes. His style, while stressing ripeness, is more refined than that of many of his Central Coast partners, and his success across many varieties places his winery high on the list of noteworthy producers.

* 1998 Babcock Vineyards Pinot Noir, Santa Barbara County, $26. This is a wine of substance and richness, setting ripe, mildly herbal Pinot Noir fruit alongside creamy oak. It firms up a bit on the palate toward the end, as befits a wine of its size, and it will reward a few years of seasoning.

* * 1997 Babcock Vineyards Syrah “Black Label Cuvee,” Santa Barbara County, $35. I like this generous wine because it captures the mass and depth of Syrah without giving in to excessive tannin or ripeness. Like so many of Babcock’s wines, it somehow manages to mix muscle with refinement, no mean feat.

* 1998 Babcock Vineyards Syrah, California, $22. This one may fall short of the ’97 Black Label in depth and drama, but it’s also more accessible at this stage, and its ripe blackberry fruit and supple texture all but hide its nominal tannins. The wine is a favorite of my wife, a lover of “slurpy” wines.

Chappellet Vineyard, Napa Valley. Donn and Molly Chappellet were among the first of the new breed to bring modern winemaking to the Napa Valley. Three decades later, people still talk about the 1969 Cabernet Sauvignon in reverent tones. Their winery and vineyard are in the Pritchard Hill area on the eastern slope of the Napa Valley. Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon are the staples in the Chappellet line and, though their prices have risen along with everyone else’s, they remain more reasonable than most at their quality level.

* 1997 Chappellet Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon “Donn Chappellet Signature,” Napa Valley, $36. We do not often see top-of-the-line Cabernets from a Napa Valley producer at this sort of price. Certainly $36 is no gift, but few reserve Cabs are any cheaper these days. A most promising aroma of cherries, herbs and creamy oak bespeak the wine’s character, while the bold tannins on the palate show its youth and the need for six to eight years of patient cellaring.

* * 1997 Chappellet Vineyard Sangiovese, Napa Valley, $25. I admit to a bit of ambivalence about this wine. On one hand, it’s marvelously tasty and very nicely focused on Sangiovese’s tangy, cherryish fruit. On the other, it’s so ripe and concentrated that it is noticeably higher in alcohol than its peers. We usually think of Sangiovese as a dinner wine, but this rather massive effort needs to be served like a Port, with cheese and walnuts after the meal.

Chateau Ste. Michelle, Columbia Valley. This, the biggest and best financed of the Washington state producers, has made many appearances on my lists of recommended wines, as has its companion label, Columbia Crest. Now producing nearly a million cases a year, Ste. Michelle seems to make almost every variety in favor and some not in favor. Because it’s in the cool Northwest, from time to time it can make a late-harvest ice wine from Riesling grapes frozen on the vine. The resulting nectar is often among the finest dessert wines on the market.

$ * 1998 Chateau Ste. Michelle Sauvignon Blanc, Columbia Valley, $9. Engaging aromas of melon, pear and kiwi are paralleled in the wine’s easy-to-taste flavors. It stays far from the grassy side of the Sauvignon Blanc makeup and concerns itself from front to back with pert, lively fruit. It would be equally at home on its own or with lighter meals.

Shafer Vineyards, Napa Valley. John Shafer purchased a couple of hundred acres of prime vineyard land in the Stags Leap area of the Napa Valley a couple of decades ago and has been producing wines since. A number of his wines have gotten three stars from me over the years, and the winery’s fine performance earned it the Winery of the Year award in Connoisseurs’ Guide a year ago. And though (as you know) I have never admitted to having a favorite wine, it was a 1994 Shafer Hillside Select Cabernet that I took with me to Paris a year ago to share with my favorite restaurant on the occasion of one of the Olkens’ significant-number anniversaries.

* * 1997 Shafer Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, $42. Shafer’s Hillside Select Cabernet sells for more than $100 and, in the current version at least, is not overwhelmingly better than this bottling, a well-stuffed wine that smells and tastes of currants, black cherries and oak. Its modest tannins firm it up for a half-dozen years of improvement in cellar but do not disqualify it from gracing your table now.

* 1998 Shafer Vineyards Chardonnay “Red Shoulder Ranch,” Napa Valley, $32. One could wish that this wine were less optimistically priced, but it would also be nice if Microsoft still sold at $18 a share. No such luck, I’m afraid, but like Shafer’s two Cabernets and its admirable Sangiovese, this richly oaked, citrus- and apple-flavored bottling is part of a very successful, trustworthy line of serious, well-made wines.

Definition of Symbols

* * * A world-class wine, superb by any measure, the top 1% to 2% of all wines tasted.

* * An exceptional wine, well worth the effort to find, 10% to 12% of wines tasted.

* An admirable wine, tasty, focused, attractive, about 25% of wines tasted.

No Rating: The best are quite pleasant and can be good buys when moderately priced.

$ Good value for the money.

x Below average quality, to be avoided.