2007 Cathedral Ridge Pinot Gris

I got 6 bottles of this Pinot Gris from wine.woot.com a few months back. It’s from Hood River, OR, which is within an hour of my house. It’s a decent white wine. Not too complex and not quite enough acid for me, but enough to go with the Indian lamb curry we had tonight.  It had a nice little hint of honeydew melon on the nose.  The oak was a hair strong for me, but with the food it was perfect.  I’m hoping to get up to the winery this summer, since it’s such an easy drive up the Columbia Gorge.  I give it an 85.5.

2007 Domaine de la Pepiere Muscadet Sevre et Maine

This wine is the little brother of the Clos les Briords.  And, I must say, it is a great little brother.  It is certainly a simpler wine, but still very nice.  Crisp and light, with great acid.  The nose was pretty light, with maybe a little hint of licorice, which was pleasant, once I found it.  The finish was long and tasted nicely of grapefruit.  All in all, for $12, a great little white.  I’m planning on doing a side-by-side with the two of them soon.  Watch this space!

2007 Clos Les Briords

This little white ($12.99 from my new favorite wine shop, Liner & Elsen) was just delightful.  After a weekend of wierd, off balance wines, I was so happy to just simply enjoy a fantastic wine.  It was crisp, rich and just delicious.  I’d recommend finding this wine if you can.  I plan on buying a few more bottles of it the next time I’m on that side of town.

2007 Leth Gruener Veltliner

Wherein I make good on my resolution to write something about my daily wine intake.

This was a nice little Gruener.  It’s not overly complex, but it is quite enjoyable.  I had it with our diner of quite spicy Indian lamb, spinach and peas curry.  It must have been pretty decent, because Heidi liked it and we drank the whole bottle.  For $15, a good buy, but not a great buy.  If it were $10, then it would be a steal.

2000 Chateau Cote Montpezat

I’m missing a few fancy french accents in the name of the wine.  So sue me.  😉

It’s from the Cotes de Castillon and claims to be 12.5% alcohol.  I bought it from wine library in November.

This wine has been disappointing to me so far.  It is very tight, both on the nose and the palate, and I can’t tell if that’s because it’s just young, or if it is over the hill, or just not very well made.  If I warm it up in my hands, I get a little bit more fruit out of it, but in general it just doesn’t have much going for it.  Today I put it in the decanter about around noon, and I’ve been trying a little bit every hour or so, hoping that it will eventually open up.  I will update as I go.

Update: So…it’s now almost 6 o’clock.  6 hours after I opened the bottle.  I think that it is just starting to open up.  I’m getting a little bit more on the nose and a tiny bit more fruit on the palate, too.  Interestingly, it also seems like the tannins are getting more expressive as well.  Strange stuff.  I will continue to sample through the evening and see how it goes.

Update #2: I’m not really sure that this wine is going to get any better.  8 hours in to it and it’s got a lot of acid, some tannins and very little fruit.  I think this wine is past it’s time.  I have a little left in the decanter which I will try after work tomorrow.  I’m not sure what I should do with the 4 remaining bottles.  I’m thinking of contacting Gary V. and leaving some feedback on this wine that he recommended.

Update #3: I left a little bit of the wine in the decanter overnight, just for the heck of it, and I’m sure glad that I did! It was delicious! It was also full of sediment and kind of gritty, but it had fruit! And flavor! I did contact Gary, and his team was great. They were willing to take the wine back, paying for shipping both for the return and replacement wine. I’m going to hang on it to the remaining 4 bottles, though and see how they turn out. Maybe 6 months from now, you’ll see another post on the 2000 Chateau Cote Montpezat.

Wine tasting, Cabernet edition

I went to the usual Friday night tasting at Mt. Tabor Fine Wines again tonight.  The theme was Cabernet, which isn’t generally my favorite, but there were some surprises.  Sandy included a nice 2005 Cabernet-based Bordeaux, which wasn’t stellar, but was very nice.  It was very tight and we weren’t sure if it would ever really open up.  Hard to say, though.  There was also a Burgundy on the tasting board (I really should write these down, shouldn’t I?) which I tried.  It was a cut above all the Cabs, in my opinion, but I definitely favor Pinot over Cab, so it makes sense that I would like it better.

I picked up a bottle of high-end dry Alsatian Gewurtztraminer and an Austrian Gruener Veltliner to enjoy sometime soon.  You can be sure I’ll write something when I do.

2005 Woot Cellars Humbug!

I’ve decided that I need to write a little bit every day, rather than try to write a lot once in a while.  The perfect really is the enemy of the good.  So…

I opened up my 2nd to last bottle of the 2005 Woot Cellars Humbug! on Wednesday.  This wine continues to shine with great fruit and balance.  And, it’s got the “delicious factor” that makes it quite enjoyable to drink.  It was fading a bit on Thursday, but still was pretty darn good.  I can’t wait to try my last bottle in 6 months or a year and see how it has held up.

Rock & Vine Three Ranches 2005 Cabernet

To be classified as a Cabernet Sauvignon,  California wines must contain at least 70% of that varietal.  This one has 79% cab, 13% merlot, 5% cab franc, 2% petite verdot and 1% malbec — truly a blend.  And, the grapes are from three ranches are in Solano, Napa and Sonoma Counties… hence the name.

Tonight, we decided to just pop this one open and enjoy while we relaxed watching the last few NCAA Football games of the day… so, alas, no food pairing to mention with this one.

This wine has a beautiful rich, dark ruby color and was rather stingy to give away anything on the nose other than vanilla (yep, oak… and remember, this is a California wine).  I didn’t decant this one, but rather poured through the Vinturi which usually opens them nicely…. this one, however, held tight.  After a good bit of swirling, trying in desperation to infuse as much air as I could, it finally gave up a hint of dried cherry.  Mind you, this was not easy to find.  I felt like I had gone spelunking in some pre-historic cavern only to find a single piece of dried cherry… honestly, that’s just how tight this was.  Made me wonder if I’d get anything on the flavor other than tannic oak.

But, thankfully, I did.  Of course, the first and heaviest thing I got was a huge piece of oak to chew on.  Granted, this was a very smooth piece of oak — it instantly had me thinking of a gorgeous oak executive desk.  You know, the type of desktop that you just want to sit at and glide your hand over?  Wonderful in furniture, not so great in my glass.  In fact, only once I managed to get past the oak did I finally find a smoky dark fruit/chocolate profile that was lead by that dried cherry.  So, let’s make that a burnt oak desk that had a handful of dark fruit in a drawer, most of which are dried cherries with some dark chocolate chips.  That should paint a pretty good picture for you.  And then……………… the tannins hit.  POW!  Really dry…. really, really dry.  Wow.  This is a wine that will make the inside of your cheeks feel like  you’ve sucked on gauze for several hours.  Pretty much tells me that this one will sit for a good while… that is, if you consider 5-7 years a good while.

Doña Paula Shiraz-Malbec 2006

Another quick little blog note:

Like the Zolo, this wine is from the Argentinian providence of Mendoza, and the dark ruby-violet color had me hoping for dark fruit in this one.  I’m happy to report that it doesn’t disappoint. This is one of those wines that I could spend all day just simply smelling…. tons of blackberry, plums, spices and black licorice.  The flavor profile to me was interesting because the initial flavor is rich, dark chocolate and then it reveals the blackberry, plums and licorice.  It very much had me thinking of biting into a boutique piece of chocolate candy that has that ultra-thick layer upon layer of rich, dark chocolate that encases a center of oh-so-yummy fruit.  Godiva couldn’t do better if they tried.  Nice tannins, not too over-powering, and a short yet smooth finish leaves me saying that I need to make sure that I have a bottle or two of this still around for those friends who don’t favor those “big” wines, yet want something a little more mid-weight.

Have you had this one yet?

 

Estampa Reserve 2005

This was suggested to me by my ‘wine guy,’ Pat, who suggested that I try it out to compare to the right-bank Bordeaux I’d had a few weeks earlier.  He also shared this interesting little fact: the predominate varietal in this Chilean blend is Carmenere which was once thought to have been extinct.  For years, this little vine was mistaken for Merlot despite the fact that the leaves weren’t the same.  Only after botanical testing was is discovered that this hearty vine in the mountains of Chile was, in fact, Carmenere.  So, take *that* to your next trivia game and impress your friends.

Camenere wines are supposed to be Chile’s answer to Bordeaux.  Hey, if you’ve got a varietal that’s been mistaken for so many years as Merlot, why not?  And, because of that, Pat wanted me to see how it compared to the 2003 Chateau Tournefeuille La Lande de Pomerol I’d had a few weeks prior.  Unfortunately, as of this writing, I don’t have my notes on the 2003.  I just enjoyed that one without making any notes (forgive me, please), so I’ll have to see if he has another bottle just so that I can truly compare the two for you.  Until then, let me share with you the impressions this little gem gave me…

This is a blend of Carmenere, Cab Sauvignon and Cab Franc and has an intense scarlet-ruby color which opens nicely with raspberry, chocolate and coffee on the nose.  Initally, you get beautifully ripe raspberry that reminds me of a fabulous raspberry jam.  Also, a wonderful herb blend of rosemary, thyme and marjoram that transitions to dark chocolate and dark-roasted coffee flavors.  Its semi-dry, not real heavy on tannins and has a short but no drop-out finish.

The fun thing with this wine, however, is the chameleon-like quality it has.  I found I liked it much more when paired with food.  It lost the inital ripe raspberry and uncovers a wonderful focus of earthiness that must have been over-shadowed by the fruit.  The herbs intensified, as did the chocolate and coffee flavors.  This is what mimicks the Bordeaux.

But, then… I decided to go the opposite and see what this wine would do.  So, I tried it after having a very small piece of 85% dark chocolate and… tah dah!…. it changes once again.  This time the raspberries and chocolate were so magnified that I felt as I’d just scooped a bit of that jam right out of the jar and topped a chocolate lava cake with it.  All of the earthiness was gone and I was left with just dessert….. fabulous!

I’d definitely recommend this to anyone who is looking for something different.  Its not the “fruit-bomb” that so many people are looking for… that is, unless you have it with a chocolate dessert.  The versatility that I found in this $14 wine impresses me and the fact that its a winery that should be widely distributed makes this a 4-star recommendation from me.