Recently, a few friends and I got together via the freeway of electrons to compare notes on America's hottest new winery, Beaux Freres. This is wine reviewer Robert Parker's first foray into the production side of the vinuous world (he is a quite active partner by all accounts), and is most interesting in light of the fact that the winery's first releases have been Pinot Noir. Given Parker's current frosty relations with much of Burgundy (the cradle of Pinot Noir), and his pessimistic view of much of the region's recent efforts, his own interpretation of this grape has been viewed with great interest on both sides of the Atlantic. My wine tasting friends and myself are decidedly divided on the relative merits of the first couple of vintages of Beaux Freres. Of the five of us who took part in the debate, I was in the minority (though not alone) in not possessing unambiguous enthusiasm for the wines. What follows are my reasons for this lack of admiration for Beaux Freres.

Beaux Freres is a perfectly fine example of what it is intended to be: an upfront, in your face, "pop and pour" kind of a wine. The vinuous equivalent to Jim Morrison's "Roadhouse Blues". It may last a few years, but it is built for early comfort. It's a Stallone movie that perhaps we can applaud for its wham-bang action and impressive special effects, but it is not art at a higher level of inspiration. When we talk of the wine's "jammy fruit tones, and secondary layers of flavor", we are headed off in the wrong direction. These attributes the wine has in copious abundance. So do also wines such as Corbieres, Cotes de Roussillon, Dolcetto d'Alba and Zinfandel. Perhaps someday in the unforeseeable future, we will be discussing the great historical pioneers that laid the groundwork for future vinuous treasures from these regions and grapes that compete favorably with the Lafite-Rothschilds and Sandrone Barolos of this world. Perhaps. I myself cannot envision this actually coming to pass, but who can say. Even if this were the case, Beaux Freres would still fall short. The reason has to do with its raison d'être, rather than its abundant, opulent personality. The best way I can describe this deficiency is to look at what I would call Beaux Freres' authenticity/artificiality quotient.

Beaux Freres, as an Oregon Pinot Noir, comes along with virtually no historical flavor baggage. The region's vitricultural roots really only date back to the late 1960s. This is in notable contradistinction to a new winemaker that sets up in a village such as Volnay or St. Emilion. In Oregon, the vision of the winemaker and the quality of the raw materials are paramount in determining the personality of the wine. While few can complain about the quality of Beaux Freres' raw materials (as manifested in the wines' dramatic concentration of fruit), the winery's vision is another matter entirely. In essence, Beaux Freres is a wine made for the television generation, where attention spans are so short and fragile that volume and sensationalism are of paramount importance in the act of making contact. Much of modernity has traded in subtlety, complexity, and a structured plot for just such sensational artifice. However, for those utopians out there who hope for a higher expression of human accomplishment, wine can at times be an expression of the noble possible over the mundane routine of modern life.

Look at vintners who the whole world shares a healthy respect for: Henri Jayer, Madame Leroy, Christophe Roumier, Jean-Francois Coche, Dominique Lafon, Jean Delmas, Michel Delon, Christian Mouiex, Bruno Giacosa, Henri Krug, to name but a small handful. Their numbers are great. All these winemakers manage to take their unique vision of wine's potential and translate it into something unique and inspirational. While they vary dramatically on their interpretations of "vision", they share a commitment to eschew artifice and opportunism in pursuit of a higher realization of their craft. Beaux Freres on the other hand, strikes me as unconditionally bent on delivering as flamboyant an example of "what the market wants" as possible. It offers up very alluring scents and flavors of plum, cassis, smoked meats, herb tones, and nutty, toasty oak. Big, rich and opulent on the palate, with all of its cards showing from the get-go, the first glass of this wine can be thrilling. But as the wine sits there in the glass and fails to evolve, one is left notably less impressed with each sip. Ultimately, it is a big, opulent, splashy wine that is packed with fruit and lavish new oak, but lacking in complexity, finesse and soul. It is (pardon the sexist analogy) a lover with a big dollop of makeup, great breast implants, capped teeth, and perfectly dyed hair. Will the luster last? No. Should we expect a bit more of ourselves? In my own case, I need to aim a bit higher on the metaphysical scale; whether or not this is self-delusion is of less importance.

I would qualify Beaux Freres as very fine Hollywood entertainment, and a craftily rendered product. But I have seen and tasted great art in wine, accomplishments that move my spirit emotionally in much the same manner as my first glimpse of Van Gogh or my first strain of Mozart or Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" moved me. The resulting great art forms vary dramatically. It is the inspiration, the window to the soul that is shared. It is this depth of feeling that keeps me feeling young and curious and interested in the world around me. It resonates through a small slice of the world of wine. But I find it curiously absent in the Pinot Noir of a man who was once winedom's greatest proponent of passionate excellence. In a nutshell, there are much more honest interpretations of Pinot Noir than Beaux Freres out there. Those are the ones I would choose to start a relationship with by tucking them in my cellar.

Rioja- Sea Change in the Wind?

To my mind, the Rioja region is at a stylistic crossroads at the present time. Traditional Rioja Tinta, a medium-bodied, silky red wine whose finest attributes of sweet red fruit, a cornucopia of spice, and intensity of flavor without undue weight, overlaid with flavors of sweet vanillin oak, is under siege by new "internationally-styled" Rioja that finds its inspiration in the chais of Bordeaux and the cellars of California. While the Rioja region has always had a wide variety of styles, from the big, heady, somewhat coarse wines (made primarily from grenache) of the "Rioja Baja" to the highly perfumed and elegant wines of the "Rioja Alta", it is unmistakable that there is movement afoot to re-define Rioja as a darker, more powerful and tannic red wine. Many wineries in the region are trying a variety of innovations in an attempt to find an expanded audience in the international wine marketplace. Today, it is not uncommon to find Rioja with significant proportions of cabernet sauvignon in the blend, along with the traditional grapes of tempranillo, graciano, and garnacha tinta (grenache). In addition, many bodegas are moving towards use of French cooperage, rather than the traditional American oak in an attempt to more fully replicate the aromatic and flavor profiles of Bordeaux and California. Wines from producers such as Marques de Murrieta and CVNE (producer of the Cune labels) have led the charge towards darker, more powerful wines that emulate Bordeaux. These well-made wines are much darker in color and much more powerful, but, in my experience, lose the wonderful aromatics and flavors that make Rioja special.

That Rioja needed to make a change is indisputable. As is so often the case, the most important question is in which direction. Traditions of very extended barrel aging, which produced as many dried out, emaciated wines as it did sweet, rounded and silky wines redolent of scents of vanilla and spice needed to be approached with more flexibility. Many domaines recognized this a decade or more ago, and began substituting bottle age for barrel aging, in an attempt to more fully protect the balance of fruit and wood. Wines produced in this method deliver Rioja at its finest, with scents of raspberry, strawberry, and plum married to spices such as clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Aromatics from the new oak are also a very important constituent component to these wines, with the telltale sweet vanilla note that is so often associated with Rioja. On the palate, these wines are medium-full, round and velvety, with sweet cores of fruit, and long, complex finishes. The ultimate goal must be one of balance, with the wonderful fruit tones of Rioja protected. However, many of the wines I taste made with cabernet sauvignon and French oak have lost the compelling character of Rioja. Bouquets of cassis, tobacco, smoke and cedar have more in common with Cru Bourgeois Bordeaux than the glories of the finest Riojas. Many of these well-made wines, while well-balanced and showing potential to age gracefully, are indistinguishable from the hundreds and hundreds of petits chateaux of Bordeaux. Given Rioja's historical enchantment with Bordeaux (the earliest Rioja bodegas modeled themselves on the great estates of Bordeaux), the search for new inspiration in the Gironde is understandable. But, to turn out a bevy claret-like wines from Rioja is to underutilize many of the region's greatest qualities. While there is unquestionably a market for such wines, they have traded in Rioja's unique character in the process. In much the same way as many Vino Tavolas made with cabernet sauvignon in Tuscany are decidedly less interesting than the best Chianti Riservas and Brunello di Montalcino (that is another story), these cabernet-enhanced wines have traded in the inherent glories and strengths of their region in the pursuit of today's (yesterday's?) fashionable flavor profiles.

It should be noted that many of the shortcomings of less successful Rioja wines of the past: dilute, dried out or stewed fruit flavors, lack of vibrancy and browning of color, and lack of depth of fruit in the mid-palate can be attributed to other practices in addition to overly long sojourns in oak barrels. Many of these characteristics are also signs of extended, deadening exposure to extremes of temperature. Given Rioja's somewhat marginal role in the international wine marketplace during the second half of the twentieth century (how many importers would look to take the same care with their Rioja as they would their Lafite or Richebourg?), how likely is it that many of the disappointments which consumers experienced with indifferent bottles of Rioja can be laid on the doorstep of mistreatment during handling? Given my experience with extreme bottle variation between batches of Rioja (even today), I would suggest that an educated guess that poor handling accounts for much of the washed out character attributed to "old style" Rioja would not be far from the truth. Certainly many wines met untimely deaths during their extended stays in barrel, but the role of temperature control in shipping and storage is certainly been under-remarked upon in the case of Rioja.

If Rioja is in need of an international role model ( I am not convinced that this is the case), I would suggest that the region look to Burgundy. Many of Rioja's vineyards share Burgundy's limestone-infused soils, giving wines of great finesse and perfume. In addition, Rioja's traditional red fruit profiles of raspberries, strawberries, and plums (red?) have more in common with Burgundy than Bordeaux or California. Rioja's great spices are also quite similar to those found in Burgundy, and in particular, in the most hallowed plots of Vosne-Romanee! If emulation is necessary, why not aim for the glories of Richebourg or Cros Parantoux, rather than the more alien flavors and aromas of Bordeaux? Certainly, the international market could find as much enthusiasm for Richebourg look-alikes as it could for Lafite look-alikes. In short, I think the producers of Rioja would be well served to look at their traditional strengths, and seek to amplify expand upon them, rather than set out in new stylistic directions. Lower yields, more vigilance during barrel aging, light hands with filtration, and safe handling instructions during shipping/storage could do much to move Rioja into the rarefied air of the world's greatest red wine-producing regions. Rioja at its best is one of the great wines of the world, and my gut feeling is that the pinnacles we see today are but the tip of the iceberg of Rioja's potential.