WTN: Camping Wines

[Brad Ballinger]

My wife and I went tent camping along Minnesota’s North Shore over the weekend. We had a great campsite overlooking Lake Superior. But camping doesn’t mean roasting weenies. We pack some nice cheeses, and cook as gourmet as we can on a two-burner camp stove. We also bring wine.

1997 M. Chapoutier Hermitage “la Sizeranne.” Being out of doors, and sitting near a campfire, it’s a bit more difficult to feel confident about making any comments on a wine’s aroma. It’s a bit more difficult when the wine doesn’t offer much help. And it’s not that I think this wine is merely shut down now. I’m just not sure there’s much there there. Muted nose of some coffee, leather, and smoke (unless that’s the fire). Flavor profile features some earthy minerality, a bit of pepper, some dried berry. It seems a bit thin, but cuts through some hard cheeses adequately. Finishes weak.

1997 Barone Ricasoli Casalferro, Toscana IGT. This wine is predominantly sangiovese with some merlot. The assemblage is not the same from vintage to vintage, but sangiovese always dominates the blend. Nose shows off some graphite, black cherry, oak, spice. Bright acidity helps spread some fruit and mineral throughout the mouth. The wine is well structured with firm tannin to go along with the acidity. But I found some of the tannin to appear more wooden (and that’s not the firewood). This wine may need a couple more years to soften, at which point I hope the fruit can still stand up to the wood.

1997 Merryvale Vineyards Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley. 99% cabernet sauvignon, 1% cabernet franc. Marcia summed this wine up pretty well: “This wine is harder to drink than the others.” I asked her if she could explain. She said that it just was, but with some pressing thought the wine was more aggressive than the other two. What I found more aggressive in this wine was the alcohol. It overwhelmed on the nose and in the mouth. There was a rich concentration of black fruits and the oak was held in check, but the alcohol seemed to create an imbalance in the wine. It may have shown better 2-3 years ago.