foray into france

[stevebody]

I can live with "agitator". Sometimes it gets dialogs started, even if people wind up thinking I'm an idiot. Having had my say on Bordeaux, let me offer this: The most interesting things I've had out of that region in the past few years were the oddball, fringe areas of the appellation, the sur mer stuff. Some of the names of the houses may have you thinking you've stumbled into the Rhone but they're Bordeaux and a lot of them are doing some really wild, creative things. Oxygen injection, barreling in different oaks - and sometimes not oak at all! - stainless and concrete fermentation, cultivated native yeasts, wild yeasts, you name it. They make Helen Turley look like a dullard and, of course, some of the wines are truly bizzare but the ones that work, freakin' WORK. They're very obscure. One importer here in Sea-patch - Elliott Bay Dist. - has created a sub-specialty of finding and importing these things. My friend Hal, who owns Elliott, delights in these freaky gems and I've tried quite a few of them. Commercially, they're a bomb right now and I don't mean "da bomb". I've read a few things in trade publications about them but there's still a ton of room to dig up stuff that will have your friends think you're Marco Flippin'-Polo of wine discovery. Dig out your Hugh Johnson's, find these outlying areas and play a little.