Sunday, the no longer new owners of Allegro Carl Helrich and Kris Miller had a Library tasting of wine made by my friends the late Tim and Crouch.
I should mention that because of the laundry list of medications & vitamins, this geezer takes my mouth is very dry and my sensitivity to acidity is acute. So when I say a wine is acidic I'm probably overstating the effect is made on my taste buds. A good taster should know exactly how his or her palate reacts, especially when you have a cold or a dry mouth because your perception is altered. To properly use your instrument(palate) you need to determine when tasting more than 2-3 wines and scoring them, how your palate is reacting. You could have eaten something that alters you taste or it could be a warm humid day. Most people do this on the first two wines. Once you have mentally calibrated your instrument, you adjust your notes & scores and understand today your nose is stuffed or you're getting a garlic heartburn. All that to say, my scores reflect my own calibration because of a very dry mouth.
1990 Brut sparkling wine. John loved goofing around with method champenoise wines using chardonnay grapes not really for sale but his own indulgence. The 1990 Brut was disgorged in 2002 just around the time he made his transition. The nose is clean and yeasty and promises more than the fruit shows. The bubbles were small and the aftertaste moderate. The fruit could have been in a "dumb" stage. 86 of 100 points. John made wines not for a year or two but decades.1999 Riesling. The biggest difference between Left Coast wines and those from the East is that owners of California wineries can specialize with 1, 2 or 3 wines sent to competitions and critics. They may have a few lesser wines for their tasting room usually sweeter, but their reputation rises and falls with their heavy hitters. In the East most wineries sell best at Festivals where simplicity and sweetness go side by side. Its these wines that keep the cash-flow positive; so an Eastern Winery will have a large variety of wines to cover the spectrum of taste. When critics come to the winery or judge at a festival they taste everything which lessens their overall perception of the winery's output. So with little exception, except for Long Island, the two major publications the Wine Advocate and the Wine Spectator seem offended that their times is taken up drinking plonk. In the early days Parker looked for & championed Mid Atlantic wines, but has turned over reviews to Pierre Rovani who views East Coast wines as minor tipples at best. This Riesling was the last one made by the Crouches who used the moselle as an esthetic model. The Riesling was not made every year as Vidal blanc was easier to grow and harvest albeit one-dimensional. A beginning darkness in the robe, fruity nose and flavours. Its not Maximum Gruenhauser but a delightful quaff. 87 points
1984 Chardonnay. John loved fat oaky chardonnays especially his reserves. Taking them around to accounts or having a European winemaker visit the winery we heard three words "too much oak". But John outfoxed us as shown by this 20 year old wine, his chards were made to last. Fermented in French oak, the nose is dominant and the fruit and finish sparse. Still it has matured better then 98% of the fat oaky, wood chip tasting chards from California that abruptly die after 5-7 years. 83 points1988 Chardonnay Reserve. Golden colour, rich viscous flavours, good not great finish. 87 points
1998 Reserve Chardonnay. Over the years Tim learned how to tend the soil and this is his and John's last bottling of chard, featured fermentation in new oak barrels that gives this wine a heavily aggressive character. Like John's musical compositions it pushes you to the limits of how much fruit and oak you can enjoy. This wine is still a baby sleeping. It may one of the best ever made East of the Rockies in time. For now 85 points with a bullet.2002 Reserve Chardonnay, This is Carl's first wine from Tim's grapes. Carl has a softer touch then John with the grapes and its more user friendly without being commercially sterile. Nose is still closed, but there's lots of fruit to contemplate. More burgundian then found in California. 87 points.
1988 Chambourcin. This French-American hybrid is usually made in a light style with little tannin. Its probably the best red hybrid which is not usually a compliment. Being a certified contrarian John left the skins on awhile so this 15 year old wine still has tannins but little else except a trace of spoilage. 82 points1982 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine that got me excited. The color is still sound, cedary nose, pleasant tannins, moderate finish. I think about 5 years past its peak. 86 points
1990 Cabernet Sauvignon. A special bottling wasn't made in 1990 as it was a pretty horrible year.not surprisingly the Reserve 82 has held up better then this 83 point wine. What saves is its very pleasant finish which reminds me of an old Tracy-Hephburn line from Spenser "There's not much meat there. But what she has is cherce."1991 Cadenza. Cadenza was the Crouches fantasy. Before the term meritage polluted winegeek-speek. John aimed for Bordeaux, mostly St Julian in style,A sensational nose still jumps out of the stemware, still tannic with the old expression from Parkton "gobs and gobs of fruit." Stylistically never as heavy as Reserve chardonnay this is a wine at the top of its form. There are only two others alive in the East who can make a red wine this good. 91 points.
1992 Cadenza The weather was rotten in 1992 in York County, hurricanes and unusually cool. Nonetheless John made a more than credible wine now gently going downhill but still fruity. 84 points 1995 Cadenza. Super ripe grapes went into this wine which in the past was hibernating. Now the tannins have receded you can taste the fruit still tentative in their appearance. At the cusp of challenging the 90. 88 points with a big bullet.1998 Cadenza The last Opus for the freres Crouch Cadenza creation. Still tannic, lots and lots of berry like fruit with a knockout finish. 89 points
1999 Coda Every winemaker must have the desire to let it all hang out. A post climax to the 98 Cadenza this is a schizoid blend of Pinot Noir, Petit Meunier, Nebbiolo, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. Like a Meritage on acid,.the diverse flavours have not knitted together. What you have now is a vinous parlor game. The tannins are not overpowering so like so many "what ifs" in the wine careers of the Crouches- for future drinking, who knows. 84 points.2002 Cabernet Sauvignon. September rains nullified super ripe grapes. Lots of tannin, pleasant fruit, too acidic for me now. 81 points. Shows Carl's technical skills as this is a pleasant quaff in a very difficult vintage.
As mentioned above with the death of John Crouch and Ham Mowbray there are only two other master. winemakers in the Mid-Atlantic. Bertero Basignani of Basignani who's Chardonnay and Meritage, Lorenzino are excellent when vintage conditions are favorable and Rob Lyons of Catoctin Vineyards who while at Byrd Winery made the legendary 1980 Cabernet . While Rob has never topped the 80 Byrd he makes consistently good chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon. Although he has a Maryland wholesaler. Catoctin's best wines are still at the winery. There are at least dozen skilled winemakers in the Mid-Atlantic. They don't really get much respect or publicity. On the Spectator although Tom Mathews likes East Coast Wines his boss Mr. Shankin likes the glitz of the Hamptons on Long Island. Like Napa & Sonoma in the
80's there's lots of new money on the way to Montauk. Money which buys good equipment and barrels and bring in winemakers who like modern chef's have a buzz about them. Too bad it still not in the glass. The vines are still young and the folks in the Finger Lakes have been doing it longer and better. Aside from Judging for the Virginia Governors Cup, I am behind the curve there but only NY does as well promoting their wine. The few West Virginia wines I've tasted compare well with the Old Dominion's where for the most part white wines dominate. North Carolina is emerging spurred on by Biltmore Estate. Loved the mansion,disliked the wine. What few wines I've had outside of Biltmore are far from prime time or the cutting edge.It was good to retaste the Allegro wines. Carl and Kris have moved the winery a lot closer to consumer orientation. Tim and John were old school--try it you'll like it -kind of salespeople with no time or need for frills.
After John's mother died and then Tim, John sold the winery and starting composing classical music although he was very catholic in his tastes, Monk being a favorite. He decided he wanted to do an oratorio based on the works of Carson McCullers and wanted me to write lyrics which led me to an appreciation of the author who was as much of an iconoclast as John was as a winemaker. We never got to page one when John left us. I'm sure Ms. McCullers rests easier in her grave never having to hear Opus #1 from Rosenberg & Crouch.