Matt Kramer’s (Oregon) Tempranillo Reverie
Among my colleagues on the restaurant side of the wine trade, it’s become fairly axiomatic that writer Matt Kramer is the best (some say only) reason to read Wine Spectator Magazine. If you aspire to an advanced understanding of the aesthetics of wine connoisseurship, look no further than Mr. Kramer’s Making Sense of Wine, a fine example of essential reading that’s also a pleasure to read.
In this month’s Wine Spectator, devoted to the editors’ 100 most exciting wines of 2007 (Rioja shout-outs: #11,Torre Muga 2004; and #16 LAN Edición Limitada 2004), Kramer writes about his “reverie wines” of 2007 (subscription required). In typically passionate, readable prose, he explains just what he means by reverie:
Reverie may be the sweetest pleasure of all. As we all know, memory has a way of buffing any rough retrospective edges. We recall the distilled pleasure of the moment, which is further enhanced by the bittersweet tinge that it will never happen again. Our greatest wine moments usually are an unrepeatable confluence of place, people and that one bottle at that just so moment.
You got to love that kind of writing, especially when it echoes sentiments you yourself hold close to your heart. To wit, here is an excerpt from my inaugural post back in November of 2006, “Blame What on Rioja?”:
Suddenly, it was clear to me that a happy confluence of food, wine, people, and place represented one of life’s most elevated and satisfying pleasures, a harmony of elements—both simple and potentially transformative—that together make life’s darker moments worth enduring.
Kramer goes on to list four wines that helped to produce such moments for him in 2007, and the second wine he mentions immediately caught my eye: Abacela Tempranillo Southern Oregon “Estate” 2004.
“This is stunning Tempranillo,” he writes. And, as if reading my first thought after reading such a sentence, he continues, “Mind you, I’m not talking about how it’s a good-for-an-American-Tempranillo–this is Tempranillo that can take on all the high-ranking Spanish Tempranilloes. Who knew that southern Oregon had a vocation for this variety?”
I’ve tasted some interesting non-Spanish Tempranilloes, but I must admit that none has excited me, let alone prompted me to think it could stand up to a Rioja, Toro, or Ribera del Duero.
But now my interest is definitely piqued. Wish I had bought a bottle while I was out on the West coast last week. Still a quick look on Wine-searcher came up with a list of a few places to buy the wine online, and I have done so.
I’d be curious to see if Mr. Kramer’s statement would hold up in a blind tasting. Might be fun to open a representative Tempranillo-based bottling from each of the three Spanish D.O.’s I mentioned above (and maybe a couple more, like La Mancha and Navarra), one from Australia, and one from California, and taste them alongside the Abacela Estate.
Knowing Mr. Kramer’s palate, it just might. And even if it didn’t, I’d still be glad for him that it inspired a reverie, and glad for us that it inspired another example of exemplary wine writing.
Abacela Tempranillo Southern Oregon “Estate” 2004 is available for online purchase at Appellation Online for $35.00 a bottle, plus shipping. To read more of Matt Kramer’s impressions of Abacela Tempranillo click here.