The David Bowler Fall Tasting Event - 2011

The facade of Tribeca Grill, host of the tasting.

Bowler Wines is one of the most anticipated tasting events of the season as they have a portfolio that is appreciated by discerning reataurant and retail buyers. Bowler offered 245 samples of which I was able to taste 99, which is about my limit over a four hour period.

The star of the portfolio are the wines from Louis/Dressner which is heavily slanted to Loire and Beaujolais. While their wines aren't heavily represented, items like Tue-Bouef, Olivier Lemasson, Jean-Paul Brun and others are always worth checking out. An interesting scene came about when tasting their Loire wines and Jules Dressner instructed us to skip past the Noella Morantin wines as they were in Asian oak and should be tasted last. I shared a puzzled look with another couple next to me who clearly heard, Asian oak. Now I realize that Loire is full of innovative winemakers and I knew that Noella has a neighboring winemaker from Japan. Could they be sharing ideas? Well, I just had to ask. Turns out Asian oak was meant to be aged-in-oak. That was a relief.

There was once a time when there was only one significant importer of Spanish wine. Today, there are a handful of top level importers and Bowler has a real good one in Jose Pastor. One of my recent favorites in Cava has been Pastor's German Gilbert Cava. Concocted of the traditional grapes of macabeo, xarello and parellada in Catalunya. Another versatile wine is his Benaza label from Monterrei, Galicia made from godello. Godello has the perfect balance of albarino's richness and verdejo's bright, crispness. This should be the next pinot grigio and the Benza godello is a terrific value.

In today's tasting Pastor had unveiled a group of wines from from the Canary Islands which I don't recall ever seeing before. The catch on Canary Island wines is that they are grown on volcanic soils which imparts a unique salty, smoke accent to the wines. My first overall impression was mild. Nothing really reached out to me, but I will look forward to seeing them again.

Being familiar with most of the Bowler European portfolio, I move on to spend some quality time with their domestic wines. The California winery, Cold Heaven, makes my favorite domestic viognier and their basic Santa Ynez Valley is right on with lush stonefruit, melon and thankfully absent of hot alcohol and wood that often inflict this grape. The California pinot noir samples offered today were also good, well-made samples worthy of purchase. They include the Mout Eden Santa Cruz, Holdridge Russian River, Chasseur Sonoma Coast, Black Kite Mendocino and Red Car Sonoma Coast pinots.