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| Waiting for the R train to take me to Union Square. |
Jenny & Francois Selections, based in Manhattan, is a tidy portfolio of just under 120 natural wines, largely from France. As in years past, this is an event that is notable for attracting a base crowd of millenials and gen Xers which is interesting in itself on who is accepting these wines. The overall portfolio was good, but didn't seem to have as many standouts as the tasting I went to last fall. Nevertheless, it's always a provocative, eye-opening look at the growing popularity of natural wines.
After a brief palate cleansing lunch at Union Square Cafe, I made the very short walk to Union Square Ballroom. This is the second focused tasting of the T. Edwards domestic portfolio. The 144 selections were almost all premium labels slanted towards pinot noir with some chardonnay, syrah and cabernet making up most of the rest. Overall, the quality of the wines were quite good for those who have a preference for California and Oregon style pinot noir. There were some familiar labels like William Sinsky, ZD and Jaffurs, but most were less recognizable, small producer labels such as Elizabeth Spencer, Allorro, Gothic, Stephen Ross, Tamarack and Maysara.
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| Part of the line up at T. Edwards. |
Of particular interest were a couple of companies that were collaborative efforts by people in the industry that interestingly, were looking to make a California wine with the character of a French wine. Bebame sources cabernet franc (95%) and gamay fruit from the Sierra foothills to make as they say, a wine in the fashion of a Chinon, Bourguiel or Beaujolais in a natural style with little SO2 and modest alcohol. The wine is made by partner Steve Edmunds of the highly touted Edmunds St Johns label. And I would have to give them good marks for making a wine with fresh acidity, bright red and black fruits with hints of black pepper. The wine would retail in the $16-$18 range and roughly be $40 in a reasonable restaurant wine list.
On the other end of the spectrum, III Somms, a hommage to the greatness of three sommeliers who want to make Burgundy style pinot noir and of course a cabernet sauvignon and a Bordeaux style blend that "are to be reasonably priced" so they can offer them to their restaurant customers. Coming in six-packs, the least expensive III Somms, a Seven Springs Willamette Valley pinot noir would be about $126 or $65 on a retail shelf. Or we could go with the reasonable Seven Springs Willamette Valley "Old Vines" at $195 at your favorite cafe. Somehow I missed sampling the greatness of the III Somms. My bad.
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| Joey Tensley chatting it up. |
Like the last T. Edwards domestic tasting last fall, my favorites were again from Tensley Wines of Los Olivos, Santa Barbara county. A tasty starter was their Tensley Blanc, Camp 4 Vineyard. A well balanced, mouth-filling blend of grenache blanc and rousanne. Of the syrahs it's a hard choice as for my favorite between Tierra Alta or Colson Canyon, but I lean toward the Tierra Alta with its balanced black fruits, bright acid and smoky, bacon fat nose.
The wildcard in the tasting was the Foggy Ridge ciders from the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia. I found their three bottlings to be comparable in style to the high quality ones I've sampled from Normandy, France. Even the sweetest of the three was more on the dry side and all had an enticing apple peel tannin component that made them more complex than most standard ciders.
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