Well-made, workaday wines at sensible prices can deliver uncommon satisfaction. A sampling over lunch with the proprietors of a boutique line of wines proves the point.
Tortoise Creek
Tortoise Creek runs from the Central Coast of California to the Languedoc region in the south of France, and, under a different name, meanders into the south of Italy. I mean this, of course, in a figurative sense.
More literally, Tortoise Creek is the name of a line of wines selected and bottled both in California and France. A newer line from the Puglia region of Italy bears a different label, but is under the same ownership. The company is owned by Janie and Mel Master, and it is run from their house in Mattituck. The Masters, who are originally British, lived for many years in Provence, where the geographical confluence of a creek, grapevines and a pond with tortoises on their property led to the invention of a tortoise family (the Liters—Hecto, Millie and Centi) and eventually to wine labels featuring this cheerful, endearing group.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Master have spent their lives in the wine and food business. Mr. Master co-authored the book, “The Wines of the Cotes du Rhone,” and they helped to make chef Paul Bocuse and winemaker Georges Duboeuf famous names in America. With chef Jonathan Waxman, Mr. Master opened Jams in New York, the restaurant that in the 1980s brought California cuisine to Manhattan. And in the late 1980s Mr. Master owned and ran Mel’s in Bridgehampton. The Masters house is, as you would expect, focused on the world of wine and food, and the accompanying culture. Only the view—the house sits on a high bluff overlooking Long Island Sound—distracts you from the sensuous pleasures of eating and drinking and the cerebral pleasure of good conversation. A recent lunch there began with Tortoise Creek Rosé d-une Nuit. With a vibrant, medium cherry hue, it is on the dark side of the rosé spectrum in color, but definitely not in spirit. The taste is bright, clear and juicy with a refreshingly tart edge to the fruit. It’s sophisticated in a French way, easy to drink, and at a retail price of $8.50, easy to buy.
With some local fish and vegetables directly from the garden, we drank a Tortoise Creek blend of chardonnay and viognier (also $8.50) produced in France. It’s a smart combination. The chardonnay brings structure and crispness and the viognier adds delicate floral notes to the abundant fruit. Pinot noir has long been the most troublesome wine from my consumer view. There just are not many decent, reasonably priced pinot noir bottles out there. And even many expensive ones disappoint. A few have come my way in recent months that give me some encouragement, including the 2004 Tortoise Creek “Big Smile” from the Central Coast of California. At $13.50, you won’t mistake this for an important Burgundy, but you won’t find it a watery, insipid imitation either, like some unimportant Burgundies.
Along with a label picturing a tortoise with a wide grin, Big Smile offers a bit of advice: “Move slowly, bask in the sun and smile a lot: a great way to win the race of life.” If the philosophy sounds like California, that’s appropriate because the taste—soft, silky and fruity—is also expressive of California. Pleasure rather than finesse, ease rather than ingenuity, is the approach here. And it works. If the goal was an unfussy, fulfilling drinking experience at an affordable price, Tortoise Creek has succeeded.
Mel and Janie Master also bottle and sell wines from Puglia, in the very southeast of Italy. Tiamo is name of their label, and it translates as “I love you.” You’d have to be made of tougher stuff than I am to write a bad review of a wine with that label, but fortunately that situation did not arise. To the contrary, I quite liked a blend of sangiovese, the grape we normally associate with Tuscany, and primitivo, a grape closely related to zinfandel, with a long history in Puglia.
The Tiamo blend is full-bodied, mellow, and well endowed with copious fruit and teeming flavor. It has a nice, dry finish, similar to a Chianti. In a sense, it is one dimensional—not complex and not layered—but that single dimension effectively and directly expresses, at least to me, the fertile gift of the earth and the vines. Tiamo sells for $9, another good value from this very interesting portfolio. Tortoise Creek and Tiamo prove that well-made, workaday wines at sensible prices can deliver uncommon satisfaction.
