Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, Random Vine Happenings and more
First Meritage Time of the 2013!
Let’s start with the answer for the wine quiz #42, Common Traits. In that quiz, you were supposed to identify what can be common between five different wines and/or wineries. I’m happy to report that we have two winners – both vinoinlove and thedrunkencyclist correctly pointed out to the fact that all of those wines use Merlot either as the only or very major component. I also have to note that I’m very impressed with the excellent in-depth analysis conducted by VinoinLove (you can see it in the comments section of the quiz post). As usual, both winners get unlimited bragging rights as their prize.
And now, to the news! Looks like that Natalie MacLean scandal (stealing of the wine reviews etc.) keeps reverberating throughout the blogosphere – here are two recent blog posts on the subject – one from Joe Roberts (a.k.a. 1WineDude), and another one is from Chris Kassel of Intoxicology Report. Both posts are great and if you didn’t read them yet, you really should.
Next, I want to bring to your attention an event coming up in about two weeks in New York. Stefano from Flora’s Table blog posted about Vinitaly International and Slow Wine 2013 taking place in New York city on January 28th. Please check Stefano’s blog post for more information about those events.
Last but not least I want to mention an interesting post by Mike Veseth from Wine Economist blog. This blog post is talking about choice of wine available to today’s wine consumer, who makes those wines and where the wines are coming from. The post is a bit technical, so you will need to pay attention while reading it. That blog post also features a “wine universe” picture you can play with (zoom in, zoom out) – definitely very interesting to see.
That’s all I have for you for today, folks. The glass is empty. Until the next time – Cheers!
Daily Glass: Wine Happenings on New Year’s Day, as well as before and after
New Year holiday in our family always means lots of food and drinks. And it is not even New Year’s evening – all the festivities start a few days before, and continue going into the New Year’s day itself. As the result, it means that a lot of wines were opened, and I don’t even want to talk about food (I refuse to touch the scale at least for the next two weeks).
We didn’t drink anything amazing (well, may be with the exception of one wine), at the same time we didn’t drink anything really bad, so here is a summary of what we went through (side note – I will make an attempt to produce “wine review” posts more regularly this year – call it New Year’s resolution or what).
E1 Locations, Spain ($20, 14.5 ABV) – This wine is made by Dave Phinney, winemaker behind Orin Swift wines, and its goal is to showcase best grapes form the best places. E1 Locations is a blend of Garnacha, Tempranillo and Carinena, all grown in three famous regions in Spain – Rioja, Ribera Del Duero and Priorat. To be very honest with you, this is not my style of wine – it has a lot of heavy fruit ( I call it “burnt fruit”), some warm spice and hint of oak with not enough acidity – however, the wine opened up somewhat next day, showing brighter fruit and more harmony. Drinkability: 7+
2009 Chateau Maison Blanche Medoc ($19.99?, 14% ABV, sorry for the picture of the ripped label) – tasting of this wine was an interesting experience. On the first day, it was drinkable, but lacked any excitement. The next day, it became plain bad – but I don’t pour wine down the drain easily, so I put it aside. Day number 3 – same story, not the wine I want to drink – and again I let it be. On the day number four, I decided to give this wine one final taste before disposing of it – and found it completely changed. The wine opened up, showing nice luscious fruit, supple tannins, good acidity and good overall balance, it became soft and round. This wine definitely needs time. And before I forget – this wine is made of 85% Merlot, 13% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Cabernet Franc. Drinkability: 8- (either decant when serving or cellar for a while).
2008 Bogle Vineyards Phantom ($17, 14.5% ABV) – Bogle Vineyards is one of my favorite producers of inexpensive California wines. While they make pretty much a full line (Chardonnay, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc.), Bogle Vineyards Petite Sirah typically represents an unbeatable QPR – it is simply an excellent wine usually priced at $11.99. The wine we had, Phantom, is a bit of a higher end – it is a blend of Zinfandel, Petite Sirah and Mourvedre. It drinks very well, showing a bouquet of warm spices on the nose, and a lot of nice bright fruit on the palate, ripe plums, touch of cinnamon and nutmeg, good acidity – quite an enjoyable wine. Drinkability: 8-
2010 Field Recordings “Neverland” Red Wine Santa Barbara ($26, 15.4% ABV) – Have you ever tried any wines from Field Recordings? You know, may be I shouldn’t even talk about this wine here? Too many people will find out, it will be hard to get, do I really need all that hassle? Well, okay – feels good sharing a secret.
Andrew Jones, winemaker behind Field Recordings, was grape grower first, working with many wineries and tending to their vineyards. Later on he started making his own wines, each of them coming from the different sites, from the places were particular grapes do particularly well. This wine, called Neverland, comes form the Three Creek Vineyard site, and it is a blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Petit Verdot and 16% Malbec. The wine was perfectly balanced, with layered soft fruit, black currant and touch of blueberries, dark chocolate notes, very long and pleasant finish. Why I wanted to keep such a great wine to myself? Very simple – total production: 150 cases. When it’s gone, it’s gone… Drinkability: 9-
2011 Brick Lane Pinot Noir California ($?, 13.4% ABV) – When faced with the wines like this one, I always have a dilemma – do I write about them in this blog, or do I not? I don’t want to pretend to be a big critic and proudly proclaim my scores – I look at the wine rating mostly as a fun exercise. Anyway, as you probably guessed, this was not a very good wine. Thin, green, acidic, unbalanced, drinkable, but not delivering any pleasure. Drinkability: 6-
2011 Dr. Hans VonMuller Riesling Spatlese Mosel ($11.99, 8% ABV) – I either don’t drink enough Riesling, or I don’t write enough about it, or both – somehow, I think Rieslings are scarcely discussed in this blog. For the Spatlese, this was a very modest Riesling – yes, it had an explicit sweetness – but it was not cloying by all means ( some of the 2010 and 2011 German Rieslings I tried had this clinging sweetness even at the Kabinett level). Sweetness was nicely balanced by acidity, and overall this was a very pleasant wine with good amount of white fruit, some apricot and may be peach, very enjoyable. Drinkability: 7+
Now it is time to talk about Sparkling wines – I have a few to share with you. First, NV Abrau-Durso Semi-dry, Russia ($12.99) – as planned, we ringed the New Year 2013 with this wine. Yes, it is not the first time I write about Abrau-Durso in this blog (it was also my wine #19 in the Top wines of 2012 list) – but I can’t help it, as the wine is good! Apple and touch of yeast on the nose, very restrained white fruit on the palate, good acidity, hint of sweetness, perfectly refreshing bubbles – you have to try it to believe it. Drinkability: 8
We are almost done, I promise! A few more sparkling wines:
So here are NV Cremant D’Alsace Brut Cattin ($16.99, 12% ABV) and NV Cremant de Bourgogne Louis Bouillot Grande Reserve Perle de Vigne ($?, 12% ABV) – the reason I lump these two wines together is that they are literally indistinguishable (unfortunately!). It is interesting that grape composition is quite different between them – Cremant d’Alsace is made out of Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Riesling and Chardonnay. Cremant de Bourgogne is a blend of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Gamay, and Aligoté. Both wines are drinkable – a bit of yeast, good acidity, crisp and refreshing – but not exciting. Drinkability: 7
Peach Canei Italy ($4, 7.5% ABV) – I guess by even mentioning this “wine” ( it is more of a wine cocktail – it is peach flavored grape wine) in this blog I have to officially renounce a self-awarded title of a wine snob and never even try to claim it again.
I told my friend Zak that way back ( about 20 years ago), when I was just slowly getting into wines, Peach Canei was one of our favorite wines. I think only a young age protected Zak from having a heart attack – he was completely shocked. So he got me a bottle of the wonderful beverage as part of my New Year’s present. As you can imagine, I had no reason to cellar it, so we decided to open the bottle right away. It had a pronounced peach flavor, with a bit too much sweetness, lightly fizzed, probably could’ve used a bit more acidity. But – it was drinkable, and we managed to finish a bottle. It is highly unlikely that I would ever crave this wine, but again, it is not that terrible as you might think. Drinkability: 6.
That’s all I have for you regarding the wines – wait, don’t go yet. New Year is usually celebrated with lots of food – here are couple of pictures which will give you an idea of how the table looked like:
That’s all for today, folks. Did you have a most memorable New Year’s wine? Please use the comments section below and share! Cheers!
Italian Night In
We had a pretty relaxing weekend, which is not very usual around here – either we are going somewhere, or someone is visiting, or we just have to drive the kids around – thus relaxing family weekends are very precious. It also means a family dinner. Coming right after the New Year’s celebration, with all the food extravaganza, it was not easy to come up with the exciting idea. But – when I said “how about meatballs”, that was received as a home run, therefore, the “Italian night in” was decided upon.
“Italian night” requires Italian wine, right? I don’t have a huge selection of Italian wines in my cellar, besides, I just have an idea of what I have, but I don’t keep any records, so finding the right bottle is always an adventure (which also makes it a fun exercise). One of the first bottles I pulled out happened to be a 2003 Barbaresco – and it looked like it would fit the bill perfectly. So the red will go with the meal, but I also need some wine to drink while cooking (cooking without wine is not fun, right?). My selection of Italian whites is almost non-existent, and a few bottles of Jermann I still want to keep, so I had to chose something else – as the result, I went for California wine – but made out of Italian grape.
I brought the 2010 Mount Palomar Castelletto Cortese Temecula Valley last year from one of my trips to California, when I visited Mount Palomar winery in Temecula Valley (Mount Palomar is definitely one of my favorite wineries in Temecula). This wine is made out of the grape called Cortese, which is growing in Italy in Piedmont, in the area called Gavi. The wine worked quite well as my cooking companion, showing ripe white fruit, apples and peaches, with a touch of perfume and hint of sweetness. Actually if you would compare this wine with any of the actual Italian wines from Gavi, you would find its sweetness a lot more pronounced (Gavi wines have a lot more acidity), but this is one of the attributes of the warmer climate wines, from the area such as Temecula. Also interesting was the fact that while the wine was cold, it had a bitter undertone, making it not so pleasant to drink, which went away as the wine warmed up. Overall, this was a decent wine. Drinkability: 7
And now, to the food. I made meatballs for the first time about 3 years ago, after extensively searching the internet for the right recipe. The meatballs came out very good – but I made a mistake of not saving the recipe I found. Any subsequent search attempts didn’t lead me to that one recipe, so I just had to come up with my own, just remembering bits and pieces. Considering my family’s unanimous and very enthusiastic approval (side note – I’m my own harshest critic – and this was tasty), I want to share the recipe with you, just in case you want to visit Italy for one night and save on the ticket cost.
Before I will give you a list of ingredients, couple of notes. First, I usually measure everything very approximately, so you will have to make adjustments for your taste and preferences. Second – yes, you can make substitutes, I’m just trying to give you a general idea.
Here is the ingredients list – the amounts are as I used them, you can scale up or down.
- Ground beef, 20% fat – 3.5 lb ( you can add or substitute with ground lamb)
- Ground pork – 1 lb (you can add or substitute with ground veal)
- 1 cup of bread crumbs – I use plain, but you can definitely used the flavored ones (you can also use old bread too, just soak it in milk or water before hand)
- 1 cup of grated Pecorino cheese (substitute with any other Italian hard aged cheese)
- 2 eggs
- fresh parsley (add or substitute with any other herbs – basil, oregano, etc.), well chopped
- 5-6 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 large shallot (you can use more), minced
- salt, pepper
- olive oil
First step is to lightly sauté the shallot for about 2 minutes in the olive oil, using medium heat, then add garlic and keep sauteing for another 2 minutes – you just want to make the mix fragrant but not really fried.
In the large bowl, combine ground meat, bread crumbs, cheese, eggs, shallot, garlic, salt and pepper. Mix it all well (I use hands for that). Now, roll the meatballs. I like mine large – just to give you an example, I made 14 meatballs out of 4.5 lb of meat, which means that each meatball is approximately 0.3+ lb.
As the result, you will end up with something like this:
Take large cast iron vessel, put a splash of olive oil and heat it up to the working temperature. You will need to adjust the amount of oil based on the fat content of your ground meat – as you can see, I had quite a bit of fat content, so I needed to use very little olive oil – if you will use leaner types of meat, you might want to increase the amount of olive oil you will put in. Once the cast iron is hot enough, put meatballs in:
You want to sear them nicely on both sides – turn them over after about 5 minutes:
After another 4-5 minutes, I added two jars of marinara sauce, covered, reduced heat and let it simmer for another 30 minutes. Then – done! Just put it on top of spaghetti (which you cooked while meatballs were simmering), serve and enjoy!
So the only thing left for me to tell you is about the wine. Actually, outside of the fact that this is Barbaresco wine, as the label says, I can’t tell you much about the pedigree of this bottle as my google search yielded no result, or at least no result that I can understand (some of my readers know way more about Italian wines than I do, so may be someone will be able to tell me the story behind this wine, that would be great) – and I don’t even remember where I got this bottle from.
No matter. I decanted this 2003 La Pieve Barbaresco for about 2.5 hours before dinner. For the Nebbiolo wine (Barbaresco, same as Barolo, is made out of Nebbiolo grapes), this 10 years old wine had very dark garnet color (brownish color is usually a characteristic of even young Nebbiolo wines). Beautiful nose of violet, cherries and leather. On the palate – powerful, earthy, with more leather and dry cherries, good acidity, noticeable tannins, long finish – unmistakably Italian, perfectly fitting our Italian night theme and complementing the food. This was a very good wine, which I would gladly drink again (except that this was my only bottle). Drinkability: 8+
This is all I have for you for today, folks. Try the recipe and let me know if you will like it. Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #42: Common Traits
Did you miss these posts? Whether you did or did not – the holidays are over, and it is time to resume our traditional Saturday wine quizzes.
I wanted to come up with a nice series, as I had it with the wine reviews (#29, #30, #31 and #32), but nothing interesting came to my mind so far, so this quiz will be completely random.
Many times before I asked you to find what is different, or which item doesn’t belong to the list. This time, it is the other way around. Below is the list of different wines and/or producers from all over the world, who share something in common. Can you please tell me what it is?
- La Mondotte
- Chateau Le Pin
- Tua Rita Redigaffe
- Amuse Bouche
- Quilceda Creek
As usual, please provide the answer in the comments below.
Have fun and good luck! Happy first weekend of 2013! Cheers!
3 Days in Vegas – Day 3: Around and About
This is the last post in the series about our 3-days excursion to Las Vegas, which took place last September. In case you missed posts about first two days, here are the links – Day 1 Part 1, Day 1 Part 2 and Day 2. Yes, you should expect more pictures too.
Just to recap, on the first day we were getting acclimated in Las Vegas and were running around to the point of total exhaustion. Our second day was all about amazing Grand Canyon experience, on which I reported with inclusion of lots of pictures. By the way, I don’t know if you noticed the “mini-quiz” question at the end of the second day post – I was asking you what I could’ve tried to take the picture of.
This was actually my attempt to take a picture of the Hoover Dam during the night from the window of the moving bus – talented, right?
Let’s proceed with our third day. This was our last full day in Las Vegas, as we were going back home the next day, thus our goal was to get as much of Vegas as possible within one day, but – at a reasonable pace. Besides, it was my wife’s actual birthday, so we had to do something about that as well.
I started my morning from the walk to the nearby convenience store and the liquor store. Wait, not true. I actually started my morning from taking of a few pictures through our room’s window. Just to show you that all those casinos are not called “resorts” for nothing, here is the proof:
And here is the view of the strip from our room:
Now, let’s talk about the morning. You see, I already mentioned before that I have a problem with paying $4 for the bottle of water. Moreover, we prefer sparkling water which is often not even available in little stores inside the casinos. The convenience store was located literally across the street from Tour and Travel lobby of Mandalay Bay which we used the day before, and the liquor store was in a close proximity as well. The reason to go to the liquor store? I’m a cheap bastard, add I also have an idea of general wine prices, which makes me cringe looking at quadruple retail prices in the restaurant wine lists – thus getting a bottle of wine to for us to drink later on sounded like a good thing to do. I got a few bottles of seltzer, a bottle of Cava and California red blend – tasting notes will follow later.
Done with that, back to the room at around 9 am – time for a breakfast. Instead of going again to the buffet, we decided to go to one of the sit down restaurants inside the casino, Raffles Cafe. We decided to get two different omelets and over-sized french toast – all the food was okay, but not great. Well, at least pictures look okay:
On the negative side, we had to wait a loooong time. And price wise, we paid for three dishes practically the same amount as in the buffet, so good buffet, such as the one at MGM Grand, definitely provides much better value. Please understand that I’m not taking about quantity of food – we ended up eating a lot more in the restaurant versus the buffet – I’m talking about quality and variety.
For the Day 3, our plan was simple – to enjoy ourselves. We already had two very intense days, we saw and experienced a lot, so no matter how little we would see on the day 3, our mission was already accomplished.
Let’s talk again about little planning. I like to know in advance what is happening in the place I’m going to (especially in the place like Las Vegas, where there are literally millions of things happening every given moment). Based on some prior reading and past experience, I had a few things in mind. “Bodies” exhibition, on its last few days, conveniently located at Luxor. Eiffel tower at Paris hotel. Dinner at buffet in Bellagio. Night time adults show, but not too late as we have to fly home the next day. More walking around without killing ourselves, as we did on the first day. Oh yeah, and we have to drink the wine at some point. Anyway, I think this was a pretty good plan, so we started from walking to Luxor and getting tickets for “Bodies” and the evening show called Fantasy.
“Bodies” had been going for a while already, exhibiting in different cities around the country. It actually presents lots of completely dissected human bodies and even individual organs, preserved with the special compounds and showing how our bodies operate. We were not allowed to take any pictures, but you can find some examples and more information about preservation process and other details at this link. We walked through the whole exhibition in about 40 minutes, and at times it was necessary to forcefully compose ourselves, as some visuals just got to you, so we both were very happy to finally walk through the exit door.
Our next stop was Paris (the casino, of course). Considering that this was Sunday in the middle of the day, we chose taxi as the mode of transportation and we got to Paris in about 5 minutes and under $10. Our goal was to visit at Eiffel tower, where you can get upstairs and enjoy 360° view of Las Vegas. This is the paid attraction, so we had to get tickets (there was no line). Quick elevator ride up, and here we are, looking at Bellagio fountains and all around from the top.
One interesting fact is that the Eiffel tower replica at Paris casino was originally designed to be an exact copy of the actual Eiffel tower, in exactly same size – but Las Vegas airport is too close, so the resulting tower was built at the half size of the original. Still, the views are beautiful and well worth your time.
As I mentioned, we didn’t want to squeeze too much into one day, so we decided to visit some of the casinos within walking distance of Paris, preferably with some additional attractions. First we went to Flamingo, which boasts Wildlife Habitat. That Wildlife Habitat was not difficult to find, but – I wouldn’t say this was exactly what we expected. There were a few flamingos, some other birds and a few fishes – pretty cool for Las Vegas, but hardly worth any special attention (unless you never saw a flamingo before, you are now in Vegas and seeing the pink bird was always your dream).
As a side note I have to also mention that Flamingo is the most run-down casino on the strip, at least from what we saw (bottom line – you can skip it).
Next stop (short walking distance) was Caesars Palace.
From what we saw, this was probably the most lavishly appointed casino – beautifully designed in the classic Roman style.
We made an attempt to see a free show, called the Fall of Atlantis. Finding it required a pretty steep walk through a huge mall called Forum Shops. By the time we found the place, we had to watch the show somewhat from the distance, as there were lots of people there already.
After two minutes, we found the acoustics terrible and show boring, so we decided to walk back through this huge place will millions of stores and then we just spent some time sitting on the bench and admiring all the beautiful architecture around us.
Next we walked to the Bellagio – our early dinner was calling. First we went again to the conservatory, now to see it in the day light. I took a few pictures, similar to the ones on the first day, only with a different lighting.
And – we had a light music to add up to the experience.
Do you think I can leave you without pictures of the flowers? Not a chance…
We headed to the Bellagio buffet at around 4:45 in the afternoon, which was a good call – when we were leaving it at about an hour later, the waiting line was extending back into the casino. In general, I believe the buffet at Bellagio is considered to be the best in Vegas (and I remember being pretty excited after visiting it about 5 years ago). This time – it was good – good variety of food, sumptuous crab legs (probably the main attraction there), good desserts – but it was lacking the “umpf”. May be because it was Sunday, may be my taste changed – I’m not sure, but the excitement was not there.
In any case, it was a good dinner, and now it was the time to go back to our room, open the wines and relax.
Here are tasting notes for the wines.
Poema Cava Brut Penedes ($14, 11.5% ABV) – yeasty, with notes of toasted bread, good acidity, good balance – excellent QPR
The red wine was Bear Flag Smooth Red, California ($12, 12% ABV) – a blend of Tempranillo, Touriga, Zinfandel and Alicante Bouchet – very nice, with the hint of smoke and cinnamon on the nose, ripe cherries, coffee and dark chocolate notes on the palate, good acidity, with little sharpness on the palate and mouthfeel a touch lighter than you might want – but very drinkable. Great QPR. Also the label was very interesting, completely surrounding the bottle:
Believe it or not, but this is pretty much all I have to tell you about our 3 days in Vegas. Yes, we went to see the show, Fantasy, and I guess it was something we expected – but nothing more and nothing less.
The next day we were on our way back to New York, and we were very happy to get home and hug the kids.
All in all, it was a great experience, and we had a great time – and we will gladly come back to Vegas at some other time.
I don’t know if you found any of these posts useful or even remotely funny, but I hope that at least liked a picture or two. Until the next time – cheers!
Words of Wisdom For All The Bloggers Out There – Seth Godin: Writer’s Block and The Drip
How many of you heard of Seth Godin? He has done (and continues doing) a lot of things in this life – he is an entrepreneur, a marketer, a consultant, an author, but I think above all, he is The Mentor. His books, his blog posts, his seminars are teaching, motivating, pushing, pulling, making uncomfortable, touching hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people around the world (quick example – Seth Godin is in 98,000+ circles on Google+).
I’m subscribed to his blog, and every day a get a little snippet of wisdom. Sometimes it is 2 lines. Sometimes, it is 20 lines. It resonates 99 times out of a 100 – for me it does. Unfortunately, I act upon what I read about 0 times out of a hundred, but this is a whole another story.
Seth’s Godin’s post of couple of days ago stroke a cord again – and this time it is about blogging. I know that many of my readers are also passionate bloggers, so I want to share this with you. Enjoy!
Wine Videos: Funny, Interesting or Blah?
Happy New Year to All!
I decided to start the new year with something fun and simple – wine videos. Actually, it appears that it is not that simple to find even semi-decent videos, so I’m curious what you would think of the videos below.
Martini Prosecco (?!) Commercial:
Stacked Wine Commercial (I actually saw it in the store, and it looks pretty neat, but I didn’t taste it):
Beringer commercial:
And Georgian wine commercial:
So, which one is your favorite? Cheers!
Happy New Year 2013!
Wishing You All Happy and Healthy New Year, Filled With Joy, Families, Friends, Laughter, Love, Great Wines and Best Experiences!
Top Twelve of ’12
Here we are. 2012 is almost over. There were bad things, there were good things. And the world didn’t end on December 21st. Unexpected, huh? But we are talking about wine here, so let’s get to it. The time has come to finish summing up the year worth of wines, and come up with the dozen most memorable wines (my second dozen+ can be found here).
12. 2004 Retro Petite Sirah Howell Mountain ($35) – Power. More power. And more power. One of the biggest wines I tasted in 2012. Not in Barolo sense, not with the tannins which just close up your taste buds, but in the sheer amount of dense, chewy, dark fruit. It will be interesting to see how this wine will evolve…
11. 2008 Chateau Ste. Michelle Ethos Reserve Syrah Columbia Valley ($36) – I love roasted, meaty notes of Syrah (I can even go as far as proclaiming Syrah being the favorite wine, but it wouldn’t be entirely true – still, Syrah is definitely one of my favorite wines). This Syrah had that roasted, smokey and peppery notes, multiplied by juicy fruit. Very delicious – you should try it with your next BBQ and tell me what you think.
10. 2007 Villa Mt Eden Pinot Noir Reserve, Russian River Valley ($25) – I would typically describe California Pinot Noirs from the position of power – a lot of them are big wines, boasting of jammy fruit. And I would typically reserve the descriptor such as “finesse” for the Burgundy. When you taste this wine, actually the first word which comes to mind is finesse. It is absolutely elegant, with beautiful layered fruit, silky smooth tannins, and – very, very balanced.
9. 2010 Turley The Label Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley ($40) – in the old style bottle came beautifully styled Cabernet Sauvignon (you can read my escapades around the subject of the bottle if you will click on the name of this wine). This wine had everything you want from your Cabernet Sauvignon – black currant, mint, eucalyptus, touch of dark chocolate, supple tannins, perfect acidity – and it was not in-your-face, perfectly restrained and elegant. This was the very first vintage of this wine, produced by the venerable Zinfandel maker Turley, and I believe this wine has long life ahead of it.
8. 2009 Beaulieu Vineyards Georges de Latour Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon ($125) – And then there was Rutherford dust. Absolutely perfect Cabernet Sauvignon, with all the classic traits and flavors, impeccably balanced, with an added bonus – a sensation of tiny particles coating your mouth, a very unusual and very memorable texture, associated only with wines produced in the area of Rutherford in Napa Valley. Before I tried this wine, I heard the “Rutherford dust” expression, but never experienced it – this was my first encounter, and boy, was that delicious!
7. 2010 Domaine Saint Prefert Cuvee Speciale Vieilles Clairettes Chateauneuf du Pape ($125 for magnum) – let me give you a very short description for this wine – a symphony in a glass. Do I need to clarify it any further? You know, all the memorable wines provoke certain association. Power, balance, finesse, roasted meat, sunshine, fresh meadows – and then there is this wine which you want to associate with music. Perfect clarity of this wine only makes you think of precisely taken high notes and how beautiful the music is. The wine has very little availability and only produced in Magnums, if I’m not mistaken – but, if you can experience it, you will not regret.
6. 1995 Gloria Ferrer Late Disgorged Carneros Sparkling Wine ($35) – who likes vintage sparklers – raise your hand! One of the best vintage sparkling wines I ever tried – perfectly mature fruit, yeast, brioche, toasted bread – everything in cohesive package, with enough acidity to support this massive sensation and keep the wine refreshing and enjoyable. I made a huge mistake with this wine – I bought only one bottle to try, and by the time I went back to the store, it was all gone… But – I’m glad I had a chance to experience it.
5. 2010 Poggio alle Gazze dell’Ornellaia, Toscana IGT ($45) – let me ask you a question – do you associate Sauvignon Blanc with Italy? Sancerre, Pouilly-Fume, New Zealand, California, Chile – but Italy? It turns out that Sauvignon Blanc does very well in Italy, definitely when it comes from such a coveted winery as Tenuta dell’Ornelaia. Medium to full bodies wine, with beautiful white fruit, perfect balance and craving to drink it until anything left in that bottle. You have to taste it to believe it.
4. 2007 Beaulieu Vineyards Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Clone 6 ($140) – what a beauty! You know, I once read review by Joe Roberts, where he compared one of Cathy Corison Cabernet wines with black panther. I tasted that same wine, and the panther didn’t come to me. With this BV Clone 6 wine, I think I found my black panther. Slick, muscled, dangerous and stunning, this wine brings all together in one grand package – dark fruit, earthiness, coffee and dark chocolate. Hello, gorgeous!
3. 2000 Carlisle Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel ($35) – luscious deliciousness. Sounds overly enthusiastic? May be. But I will not accept any criticism here, until you will have a taste of this wine. It is possible that you will still not be able to share my enthusiasm – but for me, this was one beautiful wine. Layers upon layers of the fruit, dark fruit, blue fruit – blueberries, plums, blackberries, dark chocolate, all with perfect acidity and in perfect harmony. You would never tell that this wine has ABV of 16.5% – this is how delicious this wine was.
2. 1947 Imperial Gran Reserva Rioja ($400) – 65 years old wine – still bright and youthful. This was one amazing experience – tasting the wine of such an age, and finding that you can really like it without looking for any age discounts. Fruit was still bright, all wrapped into cedar box and eucalyptus notes, with soft tannins and fresh acidity.
And now ( drum roll, please)
2012 Wine of the Year
1. 2010 Phantasi Oregon White Wine ($100, Magnum price in the restaurant) – wine geeks, rejoice! This is your wine! If you read this blog for a while, you already know that I’m self-admitted wine snob. But – you probably also know that compare to the wine snob, I’m somewhat of a 100-fold wine geek. I would try absolutely any wine and I purposefully seek odd and unusual bottles.
When this wine was offered to us in the restaurant $100 for a magnum, this was an offer I couldn’t pass by. And what the wine it was! This is 100% Roussanne wine from Oregon, made by Antica Terra – unfortunately, you can’t even find any information about this wine on the winery web site.
The wine was served at the room temperature. Deep, pungent, concentrated – in the blind tasting (actually blind, so you would not be able to see the color in your glass) I’m sure this wine would be easily identified as red. Good acidity, good balance, very food friendly – and very unique.
That concludes my Top Twelve of ’12. I would love to see your comments and also to learn about your most memorable wines of the 2012.
Wishing you all wonderful wine, food and life experiences, each and every day. Cheers!
Bubbles, Bubbles, Bubbles Everywhere!
New Year is around the corner, and of course, we are all talking about sparkling wines. That little effervescence, the tiny bubbles, they create mood and tell us “this is all good, we got something to celebrate, let’s have fun”.
There is hardly a wine blogger today who didn’t write about Bubbly. Let me join them, and share some recent encounters and (in the spirit of summing up a year) some of the old ones.
My favorite wine store, Cost Less Wines in Stamford, had a Sparkling wine tasting today. Here is what you could try:
Picollo Ernesto Rove Rina Vino Spumante Brut – Italian sparkling wine made in the Gavi region out of Cortese grape. Simple and refreshing, probably could use a touch more acidity. Has apple undertones on the palate.
Champagne Philippe Prie Brut Tradition NV – very yeasty, lots of freshly baked bread on the nose. Probably could use a touch more acidity (either there was something wrong with me, or may be the wines were a bit too warm…)
Champagne Piper-Heidsieck Brut NV – yeast, baked bread, green apples on the nose – very balanced and refreshing on the palate. Best of tasting.
Bagrationi 1882 Sparkling Wine Rouge NV, Georgia – while I had a number of Bagrationi sparkling wines before, this was my first tasting of the Bagrationi Red. This wine is a blend of 4 different grapes. Very nice nose of fresh fruit. Full bodied, with the touch of sweetness on the palate, but only a touch. Very refreshing and very pleasant.
Here are few extra bubbles for you. First, for the full immersion into the sparkling world, visit this Pinterst collection of all things Champagne.
Now, here are the links for some of my past blog posts about Sparkling wines – a 2006 newspaper article and 2011 update to it.
In 2012, I learned how to saber the bottle of sparkling wine with the wine glass. Here is a link to the blog post about it. And here is how professionals do it.
And here are the Champagne and Sparkling wines which are planned to be open on the New Year’s night:
What bubbly will be in your glass? Cheers!
Last Bottle Sign Up ($10 credit)
Talk-A-Vino 