February 27, 2019

Wine Diary: Domaine Gérard Metz Harmony 2015

Alsace is one of my favorite wine regions and has been since I first got into wine. In fact, Alsace may be one of the reasons I developed such a strong interest in wine. It’s one of the first things I look for when I walk into any shop and, frequently, it’s what I’m walking out with. That’s kind of what happened here. I was Augusta Food and Wine in Lincoln Square, purchasing a Croatian wine, when this bottle caught my eye. It’s unusual for me to pick up more than one bottle at a time, but when it comes to certain regions, I’m always trying to experience and learn more. Plus, it looked like a fun label to photograph.

If you do any amount of reading about Alsace you will quickly be confronted with the word “Edzelwicker,” which translates to “Noble Blend.” Despite the lofty sounding definition, it’s an informal term used to describe any blended white wine from that region. Although this wine is not labeled as such, it was tagged as this by Augusta on the shelf. Actually, the note commented that this style of blend is what is commonly referred to as “Edzelwicker.” Other than crémant, I really haven’t had many blends from Alsace, so I was intrigued and wanted to learn more.

Harmony is a blend of Silvaner, Pinot Blanc, Muscat, and Riesling. The producer’s website is, unfortunately, antiquated and, although it works as intended most of the time, it was unable to load the page devoted to this particular wine, instead giving me a loading screen of dubious integrity. After five minutes of, ” Page en cours de préparation,” I knew the page was never truly going to be prepared and moved on.

The importer’s website does list this label alongside one of the shortest blurbs I’ve ever seen. Seriously, my tasting note in Vivino was longer than their write-up. It’s also worth noting that the information I’ve gathered is for the 2014 vintage, they have no notes for this current blend, leaving me to assume the information is the same. However, from previous experience, blends like this tend to vary from year to year depending on the harvest.

From what I can gather, this is a more casual drinking wine from G. Metz. Food friendly, with a good amount of acid, lemon, and stone fruit flavors. Harmony seems to be perfect name for this wine, because it is superbly balanced. There was an interesting note in the aroma, a smell I thought was best described as “oily,” which sounds unpleasant, but wasn’t. While I didn’t find the wine to be terribly complex, it would be a great choice for a casual wine to have with dinner or share with friends.

I started this blog because I wanted to learn more about wine, bottles like this can be frustrating with so little information available online. Even the small amount of information I was able to find seems outdated and potentially inaccurate. In these moments it’s easy to let this frustration get the better of you, but that’s when you have to remember what the wine is for, close the laptop, and just enjoy the glass.

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February 14, 2019

Wine Diary: Mawby Vineyards Sex Sparkling Rosé NV

Okay, how could you not pick this wine for Valentine’s Day? The name has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, but there should be no miscommunication between you and your date. I’ve wanted to carry this wine at work for a long time, just to hear my co-workers say things like, “The chef recommends Sex tonight,” or, “Have you tried Sex? It’s really good.” It’s the joke that never ends.

Beyond the silly immaturity of it all, I’ve wanted to carry a Michigan wine for a while now. It’s easy to look past wines produced in a majority of the United States, most wine press give their attention to what’s produced on the West Coast. As a consequence, people tend to think the local soil and climate are incapable or producing quality wine. It’s a misconception that benefits the established regions and makes it that much harder for the pioneering local winemaker.

Despite all that, Michigan has a growing reputation for producing quality wine, particularly Riesling. I haven’t had a lot of wine from from the state, but nothing so far has disappointed me. Before the site overhaul last summer, I previously had a review of a Riesling from Left Foot Charley that I enjoyed, but of all the Michigan producers, I’ve dealt with Mawby the most.

For about a year we were selling a sparkling wine from this same line, M. Lawrence Green, at the Chopping Block. I even wrote a blog about it on the company site, encouraging people to try local wines. When I heard they had a sparkling rosé called Sex, I knew I wanted to try it… after all, I’ve heard really good things about it.

Mawby vineyards founder, Larry Mawby, planted his first grapes in the mid-seventies. Growing up on a farm, he always knew he would be working in agriculture to some degree. While traveling through Europe, he was inspired by the vineyards and wine of Burgundy in France. Upon returning home, he set his mind to producing wine in his home state of Michigan. Today Mawby is a small vineyard that produces Pinot Noir, Vignoles, Pinot Gris, Regent, Riesling, Chardonnay, and Pinot Meunier. They also supplement their harvest by acquiring additional grapes from other vineyards in Michigan, Washington, and California, which is a pretty common practice, though Mawby seems more transparent about it than most vineyards.

According to their website, the M.Lawrence line of wines is an artistic endeavor to express music through wine. Sex is described as a “Fleshy Top-40 Rosé.” It seems pretty obvious to me that if sex was music it would sound like Bill Withers, but I guess everyone has their own opinion.

The wine is a blend of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Muscat. There’s some great red fruit flavors and enough playful effervescence to make the wine fun, but where it really stood out was in the range of textures I experienced while drinking it, in the beginning it seemed fibrous and juicy like biting into an apple, by the finish it was more dry and mineral. The best word I can use to describe this wine is “Sensual,” literally gratifying to all my senses, which may be the brilliance of naming it Sex.

If you keep track of my blogging, you may recall that I also recommended a sparkling rosé for Thanksgiving. What can I say? It’s a fun style of wine, that’s inoffensive, and food friendly. Plus, how can you pass up on recommending people have Sex for Valentine’s Day. Just call me Cupid… or maybe Dionysus.

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