Abdication.

To abdicate is to renounce the throne. Why anyone would abandon their claim to the monarchy is beyond me, I'd love to be Queen.  However, not all abdications are negative in nature.  Let's face it, if Edward VIII hadn't let his libido get in the way of his duty to old Blighty we (the royal we?) wouldn't have been blessed with the unparalleled 68 year reign (thus far) of HRH ER II.  Rather, in my humble opinion, an abdication with a negative impact would be the act of usurping the employment of a crown cap closure on my favourite Grüner Veltliner (GV).  And it happened.  This particular abdication, probably of no consequence to most, has caused me quite a bit of consternation.

I loved the old closure on the H&M Hofer GV, I found the crown cap snappy and interesting.  Starting with the 2018 vintage, the Hofer GV is now sealed with a boring old screw cap.  It is my suspicion that using a crown cap on wine, when the consumer expects this type of closure to be reserved solely for beer bottles, negatively impacted the sales of this Austrian wine in the United States.  It is fair to point out that Hofer also changed the bottle shape (more Bordeaux-ish now) and the glass colour, but those two items are not nearly as distinct as a crown cap and, to be honest, probably would go unnoticed by the consumer.  Ho hum.  Alas, nothing remains unchanged.  I'll survive, I suppose, but perhaps I need to buy myself a tiara and wear it whilst enjoying a glass of this GV in the future.

Valdiguié.

I first became aware of the 2018 J. Lohr Estates Wildflower Valdiguié when I watched the wine being reviewed (well tasted, really) on a wine blogger's Instagram account.  The blogger just loved it, couldn't say enough nice things about it, lauded its drinkability, fruitiness and its worthiness of being considered a 'summer red' wine.  And he mentioned that it sold for about $8.99.  I was intrigued, I don't think I'd ever had a Valdiguié, domestic or otherwise.  I had to get my hands on some.  So I purchased six bottles directly from the winery ($10.00 a pop).  Then, about a week later, the J. Lohr Valdiguié (2019) appeared on an episode of Behind the Wines: host Elaine Chukan Brown and her guests just loved it.  Great, methought, can't wait to try it.  Valdiguié, a native grape of southern France, has been growing here in California for quite some time.  However, it had been misidentified and was known as Napa Gamay.  It took a French ampelographer, Pierre Galet, to definitively identify the (Gamay) grapevines growing in vineyards up and down California as Valdiguié.  Sealed with a screw cap, my first impression of the Wildflower was that it was reduced, it was more than a tad pongy.  Initially on the palate the wine was rather tannic and had a sour finish.  Fruit?  A tiny bit.  The wine seemed awkward and I found myself struggling to describe what, if anything, was going on with this wine.  I had just one small glass, and that was enough.  Wanting to give this wine the benefit of the doubt, I tried it again the next night and it was delightful - had really opened up - all brambly aromatics, warm red fruits and a splendid balance of acid and tannin.  Wow, love when that happens.  A second bottle, more than a week later, paired with a pan seared, oven finished flat iron steak, was simply a joy.  Everything in my glass was amplified; aroma, fruit, balance.  Couldn't fault it.  A third bottle last night, again paired with flat iron steak, proved once more that the Wildflower is a solid quaffing wine.  Three bottles down, three to go.

An Alsatian Pinot Blanc.

It's been pretty toasty in Vinoland the past few days (103° F today), so white wine has been the accompaniment to all of our evening meals.  This Calvet, 2011 Pinot Blanc is one of the bottles of wine I brought back with me from my recent trip home.  I always try to find something different for Vinomaker to try, as I'd never find an Alsatian Pinot blanc for sale anywhere in Napa.
The thing I like most about the wines of Alsace is the labelling, it's very straightforward - in some ways even simpler than California wine labels - maker's name and grape variety, that's it!  And this was a very simple wine due to it's lack of complexity.  I do usually like Pinot blanc, in all of it's mutationally-weird-wonderfulness, but the Calvet Pinot blanc was unfortunately a tad flabby for me.  I did enjoy the extreme white-peachiness of the nose and palate, but without that extra zing of acid that I was expecting the wine just fell short of being appetising.  Bottle got emptied though.