Talk-A-Vino

Oenophiles are mysterious and easily influenced.

There.

Prove me wrong.

Here is the story of my weekend.

First, the “easily influenced” part, taking place on Saturday. My twitter wine friend Le Bov Vin #inmyglass likes to play a game – post a picture of a glass of wine with the description, asking everybody to guess the wine in the glass. Saturday’s post described the wine as “Redcherry.Blackfruit n strawberry,vanilla,licorice,hints of wood,smokedmeat Veryfresh,wellbalanced, polishedtannins,lingering finish“. My first guess was Pinotage, the second guess was leading to Washington Syrah/Grenache, but something here was also suggesting Spain, so I put all of these guesses into a tweet. After getting a confirmation that Spain is the right place, my first inclination was Ribera del Duero or Toro, as Rioja rarely would offer smoked meat notes – could’ve been something from Priorat, of course, but I decided to go with the first idea – and somehow I managed to hit it – the actual wine in the glass was Bodega Tinto Pesquera, one of the most classic producers from Ribera del Duero.

That made me crave Ribera del Duero wine, but somehow, while I always have a good amount of Rioja on hand, Ribera del Duero is a rare bird in my cellar. At this particular moment, it was as rare as none – but I recalled that I have a few bottles from Toro, the area down south from Ribera del Duero, producing densely concentrated and powerful renditions of Tempranillo, so I decided to obey my crave with 2015 Elias Mora Descarte Toro DO.

I wrote about this wine at the beginning of the year, when I called it Vinous Vino. Unlike the last time, I decided not to wait for the wine to come around slowly, and the wine went directly into the decanter upon opening. This definitely worked, as after about an hour in the decanter the wine showed massive and powerful, but also approachable enough to be enjoyed already, with dark cherries, espresso, and herbs-loaded profile.

Then there was Sunday, and the weather was noticeably cooler, one of the first cold days this fall so far. I wanted to sit down outside with a glass of wine, which obviously begged the question “what to open”. While going through the options inside my head, my inner voice insistingly proclaimed “Chardonnay”. I tried to argue – why Chardonnay, we can do Albarino, Chenin, Viognier, Riesling – but most importantly – why should it even be the white wine? It is cold enough to crave red! But the inner voice was unyielding – it has to be  Chardonnay, there is nothing to discuss.

I don’t have a huge selection of Chardonnay, so the 2013 Lynmar Estate Chardonnay Russian River Valley (14.5% ABV) was almost the easiest choice. Boy, what a good choice it was… After a few minutes in the glass, the wine was singing with a core of vanilla with supporting voices of butter and green apples, all in perfect harmony. I don’t know if the wine was at its peak, or if it had another 10 years of life left – but it was perfect at the moment, no matter what mystery possessed me to open the bottle of Chardonnay.

And then there was the sunset. I love taking pictures of the sunset, one of my most favorite types of photography. I often can take a decent picture of sunset right from my backyard – not all of those worth sharing though. But this Sunday sunset happened to be really special. A little rain started all of a sudden in the evening, forcing me to seek cover under the umbrella on the deck. The rain was very short, maybe 5 minutes or less. Once the rain didn’t look bothersome anymore, I stepped out from under the umbrella to go sit in the chair in the backyard – and then I saw THIS:

It appears that rain before the sunset creates some truly magical conditions for the sunset – some of the most memorable sunset experiences all took place after the rain. Once I saw this sunset, I spent the next 15 minutes taking pictures, with the glass and without, every moment being special and really worth capturing. Below are some of those pictures, I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did while talking them:

My failed attempt to catch the reflection of the sunset on the glass

That’s all I have to share for now. How was your weekend?