Talk-A-Vino

I guess it is Saturday, therefore, it is a time for our weekly wine quiz. Before we get to the new quiz, let me give you an answer for the past week’s quiz “Do you know Kosher wines” – correct answer is Massaya. While the name might be suggestive that it would be a kosher wine, this [very tasty, full bodied] wine is produced in Lebanon, and it is not Kosher. The rest of the wines on the list are Kosher, including Goose Bay, which I saw was a popular choice as a “non-kosher” wine.

Now, the theme for today’s poll is Pinot Noir. Pinot Noir is one of the most popular grapes in the world, and literally there are very few regions where wines are not made out of Pinot Noir. Below is a list of regions where great wines are made out of Pinot Noir – all except one. Which one do you think it is? Answer is coming next week.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone! Cheers!

Please let me be unique and different and write a blog post about Thanksgiving wines (duh – I meant let me pretend that hundreds of bloggers and wine writers didn’t cover the subject yet as broad as possible). In essence, I’m not planning to offer you any advice. I think the variety of tastes, favors and simply palate preferences at Thanksgiving table is way to wide to be able to do any essential wine and food pairing. Therefore, I would say that there are no limitations to what wines you should have on your table – you simply have to be able to enjoy them with or without food. As far as this blog post is concerned, as I said, I’m not going to offer any advice – I will simply tell you what I have in plans for the thanksgiving meal and why. I will list here way more wines than we will be actually able to consume, but hey, more is better than less, right?

You can definitely start with sparkler, but as I don’t have one ready, 2011 Beaujolais Noveau will do just fine. Why? It should be slightly chilled (let’s say to under 60F), then it is quite refreshing with all the red fruit and mouthwatering acidity – good way to get ready to Thanksgiving meal.

Chardonnay is a must, preferably one from US. Why? Because Chardonnay is one of the great American wines, producing very good results in all different areas from California to Long Island. I would recommend Chardonnay which was aged in the oak barrels and has some butter, vanilla and toasted oak – not the stainless steel-fermented one, which often tastes indistinguishable from Pinot Grigio. My personal choice is 2006 Cambria Bench Break Santa Maria Valley – this is one of my favorites since I tried that at The Capital Grill, and I’m curious to see how it is developing (I still have few bottles left). Besides, I don’t have Peter Michael as my allocation didn’t come through yet.

The next wine is a 2009 Cazar Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir. Why? 2009 was a great year for California Pinot Noir, and this particular wine is simply meant for the Thanksgiving table with all the fresh and juicy cranberries and perfect acidity. I simply see this wine being great with turkey and many other dishes.

Amarone? Of course. Why? Simply because Amarone is one of my favorite wines, and every time we drink it, it is a special occasion. 2006 Luigi Righetti Capitel de Roari Amarone della Valpolicella is one of the simpler versions of a great wines ( also inexpensive compare to what Amarone typically costs), so I’m curious if it will work with the meal at all.

There can’t be Thanksgiving celebration without Zinfandel on the table. Why? Zinfandel is unique grape which doesn’t grow anywhere else outside of United States (with the exception of the close relative, Primitivo, which grows in Italy). Zinfandel has a unique flavor profile with lots of fresh berries and lots of power on the palate, which should bode well with the festive Thanksgiving meal. 2009 Turley Old Vines Zinfandel from Napa Valley is simply one of the great California Zinfandels, and I’m glad we will be able to share a bottle (it is not easy to get).

Time for desert. I’m selecting Bodegas Hidalgo Pedro Ximenez Triana. Why? First of all, this is the very old wine – as Jerez is made using Solera method, with new wines constantly blended with the older ones, this wine started at around 1750, so it can definitely serve as historic reference to the great holiday. And the second reason – this wine simply tastes phenomenal. I already wrote about it in one of the previous posts - the richness and the balance of this wine should really be experienced by any wine lover.

Will we drink all of these wines? Probably not. Will there be other wines on Thanksgiving table? You bet. Of course I will report on all the wonderful food and wine experience once the holiday is over, but for now I will be glad to hear what wines do you plan to have on your table.

That’s all, folks. Happy Thanksgiving and Cheers!

I guess partially encouraged by all the #pinotsmackdown conversations on Twitter, I decided to open Pinot Noir tonight. The bottle I opened was 2009 Irony Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley.

My luck with California Pinot Noir varies widely (I think I can count more misses than hits, I just typically don’t write about those). To my delight, this wine was a hit. After a few moments of breathing, it came out very smooth and mellow, with beautiful smoky nose (one of my favorite properties of a good Pinot). Balanced fruit on the palate, lots of strawberries, some violets, good acidity and soft tannins. Very long finish. I will put Drinkability at 8-.

Next week, on September 1st, we will be celebrating Cabernet Day (#CabernetDay, for more information and rules of participation you can click here) – make sure to celebrate with all the wine lovers by opening that special bottle you’ve being saving for so long. Also, considering that there are more than 600 grapes used in winemaking, and only 365 days in a year, I’m sure we can make every day a special grape day. Cheers!

Here is another Value Wines project update. We had French, Portuguese and Italian wines covered in the project. Today’s update is bringing in a new region – Oregon.

So far I would say that the outcome of the project is very encouraging – a lot of good, very drinkable wines from all regions mentioned above, all priced very well. The wine from Oregon, 2009 Primarius Pinot Noir, however, I would have to call the biggest surprise of the project. Why so? It is not surprising that we can find good and inexpensive wines coming from Portugal, for instance – wine region is grossly ignored and underrated ( this is changing, though), so the winemakers have to price their wines accordingly. Oregon wines, on another side, are well known worldwide as source of the Pinot Noirs, rivaling those of Burgundy – and so far my experience with any Oregon Pinot Noir under $15 had being largely negative (wimpy and diluted wines).

All in all, Primarius Pinot Noir ($11.99) was very good wine – smokiness and finesse of the classic Pinot Noir, layered and restrained fruit and very good balance – I think this is great wine for the price (and even in general). I will put Drinkability at 7+.

Next wine comes from Italy – 2009 Tedeschi Valpolicella Classico ($10.98), and it has both good and bad sides. For the bad side – the wine never came together in a glass. It tasted as all the taste elements – fruitiness, acidity, tannins and alcohol were pulling in the different directions. The wine is drinkable, but not really enjoyable – by itself. I would guess this is a food wine – paired together with some homemade marinara sauce over fresh pasta, it should taste ( and fare) quite differently. For now, I will put Drinkability at 6+. For the good side, I’m adding 3 new grapes with this wine – Rossignola, Negrara and Dindarella, so the total count increases to 312.

Three more wines from Portugal – 2009 Caves Vale do Rodo, Douro DOC ($6.98), 2003 Primavera Douro DOC Reserva ($6.98) and 2007 Monte Da Cal Vinho Regional Alentejano ($6.47). All three are very nice and simple wines, easy to drink and pleasant – and great value for the money. I will put Drinkability at 7 for all three.

This concludes Value Wines project update for today. Few more wines are left to try in the current batch – as usual, report will be coming soon.

When tasting the wine, there is a lot of factors which will affect the perceived taste ( like/don’t like). Some of those factors are objective, like temperature (chill the wine, and some flaws will disappear), some of the factors are rather subjective, like your mood.  I want to talk about another factor which is hard to categorize, but it can greatly affect what we think about the wine. It is one and the same factor which comes in many forms – label, producer, cost, rating,  and wine critic in the end of the day. Of course there are exception to this rule, there are best of us who can simply disregard all the known facts, and simply taste the wine for what it is. However, majority of us (myself definitely included), will be influenced by what we know. Ah, Robert Parker rated this wine 93, it must be really great… This bottle of wine cost $100 – it must be great…

Well, there is a good way to eliminate this factor – it is called blind tasting. Considering this is summer, we decided to try a lighter red grape in the blind tasting format – so we chose Pinot Noir. Great thing about Pinot Noir is that it is grown in many different regions, and while the grape is the same, the wines from the different places will taste quite differently.

How do you run a blind wine tasting? Very easily. Each person brings a wine bottle in the paper bag and then opens it. All the bags are assigned random numbers. Then the wines get poured into the glasses which are standing on the mat with the numbers. Voila! Now all the wines can be tasted and independently assessed – no intimidation by any of the factors we mentioned above  – in the glass they all look [almost] the same (oh, boy, I can be bitten up by professionals for such a lame claim, but oh well…).

We had 6 Pinot Noirs and went through them one by one, assessing color, smell and taste of each, exchanging thoughts ( like “I think this is California” or “I can’t smell anything”), but not enforcing opinions. Here are my short notes as we went along (you can actually see the picture of all 6 wines and then see how funny my notes are):

#!:  New world, too alcohol – 2006? (Actual wine: Chateaux Corton Grancey 1999, Grand Cru Corton, France)

#2: New World, California, 2007/2008?(Actual Wine: Sea Smoke Southing 2007, Sta. Rita Hills, California)

#3: Not bad, needs time, Chile? (Actual wine: J. Lohr Fog’s Reach Pinot Noir 2007, Arroyo Seco, California)

#4: Bright acidity, fresh fruit, Oregon? (Actual wine: Terra Noble Pinot Noir Reserva, 2009, Casablanca Valley, Chile)

#5: Classic – perfect smoky nose (Actual wine: Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir 2008, South Africa)

#6: Young and reminding of Monastrell. Very nice (Actual wine: Wine by Joe Pinot Noir 2008, Oregon)

Once we tried all 6 wines, it was the time to tally it up and proclaim the winner, after which all the wines were revealed out of their bags. I would think that considering the title of the post, you already guessed that something unusual is coming. True, though for me it was way too  unusual. So the two winning wines were tied up – #3 and #5, both got the same number of votes. I can understand the wine #3, J. Lohr Fog’s Reach Pinot Noir from Monterey county, California. California is known as the place for Pinot Noirs, especially with the help of movie Sideways. But the wine #5, which I thought had all the traits of the classic Burgundy – please tell me honestly, how many of you heard of ( never mind trying) Pinot Noir from South Africa?! Of course there are great wines from South Africa – Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, but Pinot Noir? And nevertheless, wine #5 was Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir from South Africa.

So here you have it – blind wine tasting, which removes all the intimidation and decision influencers, and leaves you one on one with the wine in the pure and honest fashion. No hints “oh, that should be good because…”, no pretension.  Of course there can be flaps. Wine #1 was spoiled (probably oxidation), so it should really be excused from the judgment. At the same time, wine #2, Sea Smoke Southing, would probably be decided a winner, simply because it is a cult Pinot, and it cost $80+ – if you can find it. And yet in the blind setting, it didn’t generate much response. Of course there is always a happy chance that none of us has sophisticated palate – but in the end of the day, the definition of the “best wine” is simple – it is the one which YOU consider the best, so I think we shouldn’t worry about it.

To conclude – get your friends together and try blind tasting one day – you might be surprised, but you will not be disappointed! Drink the wine, and have fun doing that .

Cheers!