Home Grown: A celebration of local culinary enterprise

Brian Carter, Master of Blends

Outside North America, there's hardly a winery that releases a wine made entirely from cabernet sauvignon. The notion that a wine must be 100 percent pinot noir, for example, comes from Burgundy, where there simply are no other grapes around, and pinot noir by itself is nigh onto perfect. But in Bordeaux, the wilder side of cabernet sauvignon needs to be subdued with merlot, then given some backbone with cabernet franc and maybe a little perfume with petit verdot if you've got a few plants in a corner of your vineyard. Those complex and vaunted "Bordeaux blends," much drooled over, are often nothing more than combinations of whatever your grandfather's grandfather happened to plant on the land around your farmhouse.

Well, nowadays it's all much more complicated. The learned savants at the University of California at Davis, waving graphs of "degree days" in the hinterlands of the Napa Valley, decreed what would grow best in this vale or on that hillock, and the earnest technicians they sent forth from the Fermentation Science labs dutifully planted what they were told. As a result, we had three generations of misguided wine-growing user manuals.

Fortunately, fortunately, common sense sometimes rears its head. Among the sensible practitioners is Brian Carter, the acknowledged master of blending wine in Washington. With the modesty of a teenage Mozart sitting at the keyboard in the court of Franz Josef, Carter demonstrates his inherent understanding of a wine's components: sangiovese grapes from Dick Boushey's vineyard in the heart of the Yakima Valley; cabernet sauvignon from Upland Vineyards on Snipes Mountain; syrah from Olsen Vineyards outside of Prosser. What to do with them?

In Tuscany, where sangiovese is ubiquitous, there's not much you can do except make Chianti, if you're fortunate enough to own vineyards in the designated zones. (You're welcome to label it "Sangiovese" outside the boundaries, however.) The trouble with sangiovese, though, and we're hardly the first to mention it, is that it's a nice wine that needs more backbone. Not an issue with wines from vineyards designated Chianti Classico DOCG, not a problem with the long-aged Riservas, not a problem with Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, nor with Brunello di Montalcino, but these famous bottles represent a small fraction of sangiovese produced in Tuscany.

Rather than ignore or challenge the laws governing wine labeling, a handful of ambitious Tuscan growers found a way around them. For those sangiovese wines that didn't have the advantage of being born into the right vineyards, they beefed them up. Not with cheap, strong juice from Sicily but with honest, locally-grown cabernet sauvignon and syrah "international varieties." And--this is the best part--rather than "declassify" their blends, they convinced a gaggle of international wine writers to give them a new name: "Super Tuscan."

It helped that A-list producers like Gaja and Antinori were leading the way. Before long, Super Tuscan became its own category, and with good reason. The cabernet and syrah did in fact help most sangiovese: it became more robust, more age-worthy, more balanced.

And that's what Brian Carter demonstrates: that the whole can indeed be greater than the sum of its parts. Carter's Super Tuscan is called Tuttorosso; the final blend was two thirds sangiovese. He bottled a thousand cases, and sells it for $30 a bottle.

In addition to an intuitive feel for what the grapes are telling him, Carter understands a fundamental principle of wine marketing: you can't push wine through the distribution pipeline. It has to get sucked out, a bottle or two at a time. The Tuttorrosso might well be "worth" $100 a bottle, but the number of people who suck on $100 bottles is limited. Better by far to position it at an accessible price.

Carter does this with all his wines, all blends that allow him to select the best available grapes. In addition to the Tuttorosso Super Tuscan blend, there's a white, Oriana (viognier with roussanne topped off with a touch of riesling), Solesce (traditional Bordeaux varieties) and Le Coursier (right-bank, no cabernet sauvignon), Byzance (a southern Rhone blend), Trentenaire (mostly petit verdot) Corrida (Spanish varieties), Opulento (port-style dessert wine) and my personal favorite, Abracadabra (a "magic" blend of syrah, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, sangiovese, petit verdot, grenache and malbec). Carter-who started out making fruit wines with Paul Thomas, then worked with Harry Alhadeff to create the Apex brand-has this field almost to himself. He has the longevity and the breadth of experience and the know-how to go beyond the cliché of "crafting" wines; he really does "make" them.

Note: Brian and Steelhead Diner are partnering on a winemaker dinner on February 18 at 7 p.m. Cost is $65 per person, + tax and gratuity. Call 206-625-0129 for reservations.

Murray Stenson, Seattle's Bar Man

It's fair to say that anyone who's had a cocktail in Seattle in the past decade has been touched in some way by Murray Stenson. The classic Negroni, the Corpse Reviver, the Last Word, drinks you see everywhere in town now, made with skill and care by a new generation of mixologists inspired by his name, his expertise, and his professional mentoring. Murray's reknown and influence extend far from home, and when he was stricken with heart problems, there were fundraising events in a dozen cities around North America, Asia and Europe to help pay for his care.

What he brings to the business is a sense of hospitality (he's a great listener, never forgets a customer, and--with a quick dip of a straw--tastes every drink he mixes) and professionalism (an encyclopedic knowledge of spirits, a gifted palate). He would politely decline to make a "Sex on the Beach" for the rare inebriate who might accidentally stumble into the ZigZag, but would gladly spend two minutes or longer (an eternity in a busy bar) muddling mint leaves and sugar for a julep. or offering a taste of an exotic spirit for an interested customer. His nickname, Murr the Blur, is a tribute to his focus, not his speed.

Notes Robert Hess, Seattle-based cocktail guru, "It wasn't that long ago that people thought good coffee came from a can, or good beer came from large commercial breweries. Perceptions change, fortunately. And now we have our own Murray Stenson showing us that good cocktails can also be a thing of beauty.

Murray (nobody calls him "Mr. Stenson" for long) solidified his position as Seattle's premier barman at the Zig Zag, where he solidified his reputation after his colleagues at IL Bistro opened their own place. By 2010, he was a legendary figure, known throughout the country; recognized by his colleagues at the annual "Tales of the Cocktail" gathering in New Orleans; honored by Esquire magazine as the nation's best bartender.

But nothing lasts forever. His heart problems slowed his recovery after a shoulder injury that slowed his cocktail-shaking prowess. He moved to Oliver's, then the Pan Pacific, back to IL Bistro followed by a stint at Queen City Grill. Where next? "A work in progress," he tells Seattle DINING! It's the state of employment called "consulting," which admits nothing. "But in the course of looking at potential bars," he reports. "just yesterday, a location may have found me."

February 2015

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Ronald Holden is a Seattle-based journalist who specializes in food, wine and travel. He has worked for KING TV, Seattle Weekly, and Chateau Ste. Michelle. His blog is www.Cornichon.org and he has recently published a new book "Home Grown Seattle: 101 True Tales of Local Food & Drink"