"The moist laboratory of the mouth is never the same" - Louis Martini.


As part of my self directed study of wine, I have been going to wine shops. I talk to the proprietor. I get a recommendation or two. I buy a couple of bottles. If there are wines to be tasted, I do that. The bottles go home and are opened throughout the week and analyzed.

As the bottles stack up in the recycling bin and the stack of wine books on the buffet grows the mysteries of wine are becoming clearer - but there is still Vaseline on the lens.

I, we, have been concentrating on Rhone wines, pinot noirs from all over and whites from unusual varietals and places. No real system here. I am familiarizing my mouth and nose to the varietals and characters of the Rhone. Pinot noirs I love. Unusual whites are fascinating.

On the recommendation of a downtown wine retailer, I recently bought a bottle of 2003 Domaine Grand Veneur Les Champauvins, Cotes du Rhone - Villages made by Alain Jaume et Fils. It is 70% Grenache, 20% Syrah and 10% Mourvedre. It cost 11.99. Since then I have seen the same wine at 14.99 and 19.99. That price range was an education in itself.

That there are so many positive reviews regarding this wine is a mystery to me. Although there was some jam on the nose, it disappeared quickly to be replaced by a sinus cleansing alcohol blast (14.5%). The mouth was rough and disagreeably prickly and the end was a huge black void punctuated by an occasional spark of nothing. The name of this winery, Domaine Grand Veneur, roughly translates as House of the Head Foreman of the Hunt, there being some heirarchy of big-wigs associated with riding to hounds, apparently. After tasting this wine, I am of the opinion that one can't be running around on a horse chasing a dog that is chasing some creature of the forest or field if one wants to make a good wine. You have to stay home at pay attention. And unless I bought a bad bottle, the vignerons were not home enough.

But maybe there is time for hunting, I don't now, perhaps it's necessary. I do think that the only thing one could pair this wine with is a nice big slab of raw venison. There is a roughness to the wine that might be soothed by mingling with blood in the mouth.

The question begins forming - does this wine reflect the general tastes of the wine store downtown? A wine that practically rapes the mouth with alcohol and tastes rough - perhaps having all it's subtler essences aggressively filtered out? - is this what I should expect from any other bottles from this store? Is this a fluke? Given the number of favorable reviews it has another question begins to form - can the mouths of people be so different?

By way of contrast, last night Paul and I opened a bottle of 2003 Feraud - Brunel Cotes du Rhone purchased from a purveyor off Miramar Road. This wine is 80% Grenache and 20% Syrah and it's alcohol is 13.5%. Laurence Feraud (Pegau) and Andre Brunel (Les Cailloux) are the wine makers. This wine was a beautiful deep ruby color. The nose was immediately spicy with an earthy, almost smoky quality knitted together with black cherries. It began a little rough and a little too astringent, but it quickly settled down into a balance of peppery pleasure. It was lip smacking good! And at only 9.95 from the San Diego Wine on East Gate mall!

So what is up with these two wines? Did I get a bad bottle of Domain Grand Veneur? What would have made it so disagreeable? It didn't taste cooked, corked or oxidized. It struck me that all it's qualities were created at the winery - high alcohol - were the grapes harvested too ripe? 2003 was a hot growing year. What kind of filtering does this winery do??

The idea of shelling out for another bottle to see if I was just unlucky is not palatable. By comparison, shelling out for another Feraud - Brunel or 2 or 6 is very appetizing!