Wine Grab Bag

I haven’t really been in the mood to do any detailed tasting notes lately, but I thought I would share what I’ve had to drink in the last week or so.

First, I’ve had a few bottles of the 2006 Kartaeuserhof Riesling. This stuff is amazing.  I wish I had a ton more.  It’s a really nice and dry Austrian Riesling.  I love it.  Fantastic acidity.  It really hits my palate exactly where it should.  I have nothing negative to say about it, except that I only have one bottle left.  If there is any way you can get this wine, get it.  Just fantastic stuff.

Next, another Riesling, this one from the Alsace.  It’s a 2004 from Jean Sipp, labeled “Riesling Vieilles Vignes”.  I have mixed feelings on this one.  It’s not nearly as good as the Kartaeuserhof, but it’s decent.  Nice acidity, but a little more sugar than I like. It also has a kind of vomitty back end which I don’t like too much, but it’s good with pizza.  Not worth the $18, in my opinion.

On to one of the more interesting, off-the-wall wines I’ve had.  It’s a Txakoli, which is a wine from the Basque region of Spain.  It’s obscure enough that even wikipedia doesn’t have much to say about it.  The one I got, 2007 Txakoli Gurrutxaga is a rosé.  Low alcohol (10.5%), very low sugar, really tart.  The grapes must be very low in sugar to get that combination.  On the second day I got some good strawberry flavor out of it.  I enjoyed it quite a bit, but it’s a little steep at $20.  A good palate-builder, but not something I would seek out to drink all the time.

Finally, a little red wine.  It’s been pretty cool for July in Oregon and I broke out a bottle of red to drink at the beginning of the week.  This one is a wine recommended by Gary, and I bought a couple bottles of it a few months back, but hadn’t cracked one open before.  It’s the 2005 Clos du Prieur, from the Coteaux Du Languedoc.  Gary raved about it.  I thought it was good.  Nice and tannic and full of fruit and complexity, but it didn’t change my life.  Maybe in the winter I’ll open up another bottle.  My palate is so in tune with high-acidity whites right now that maybe I’m just not in the right mood for it.  Perhaps for someone with a more sophisticated palate it would be a must-buy, but for me it was merely good.  I’ll update again in the winter when I try it again.

That’s all for now.  Maybe next time I’ll get inspired to do a more in-depth tasting, rather than just enjoying some yummy wine.  Or maybe not…

[Sorry for the wacky formatting on this one.  I'm no graphic designer and I'm not sure how I should lay it out, so I let WordPress do it for me, with odd results.  And, thanks to imageshack for hosting the images.]

2005 Woot Cellars Humbug!

I’ve been taking a break from wine writing for the past week or so, as my health hasn’t been great and I just haven’t been in the right mood to write.  Today was quite cool, however, so I decided to open up a bottle of the 2005 Woot Cellars Humbug! (A Melancholy Red).  When I first bought this wine, I wasn’t very impressed with it.  Even with decanting, it didn’t taste all that great and felt too hot, even at only 13.8% alcohol.  However, each bottle has gotten progressively mellower throughout the year and this one seems to be the best so far.

I cracked this open right before dinner and didn’t decant it.  On the nose, I smelled cool, dark fruit.  I would describe it best as sour pie cherries with molasses drizzled over the top.

The taste: This wine actually has very nice fruit, tasting of those sour cherries.  Maybe a little darker than pie cherries, or maybe a mix of black cherries and pie cherries.  Plenty of sour, though, which I like. The mid palate was decent (no drop-outs) and it has a good long finish, which surprised me as it doesn’t have much in the way of back-end tannins.  The lack of tannins make me fear for the shelf-life of this wine and I’m planning on having the rest of my case consumed by the holidays.  This wine is drinking very smooth right now, although I would love some more tannins.

Dinner was pasta with pesto, tomatoes and spicy Italian sausages.  The wine held up fine against this flavor onslaught.  But, I had it with a carob-nut bar after dinner and it really shone.  The carob brought out the sour nature of the wine very nicely, but also accentuated the sweetness, giving it an almost port-like character.  Pretty darn yummy!

PS: Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting

Independence Weekend Wines!

OK so the picture says 1993, but I really had the 1990.....

So I went to a wonderful dinner in Seattle over the weekend. For those fellow foodies out there I highly recommend heading to The Harvest Vine. It is a wonderful tapas (family style) restaurant which I try to go to every time I visit Seattle.

My friends and I had two yummy bottles to enjoy during dinner. We started with a bottle of 1990 Jos. Christoffel Jr. Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese.

The wine had a very nice sweet citris / pineapple quality and hint of the oiliness you would normally expect. However it was not quite as minerally as I like, but like Mr. Gary I like a little razor action on my toungue. Regardless it was a wonderful wine.

The second bottle we had was a 2005 Walter Hansel Alyse cuvee Pinot Noir.

Thanks to wallywine.com for having a current image.

The wine is great blend of Burgundy and New world .. leaning more towards Burgundy. Everyone enjoyed the earthiness of the wine, but it was not dank nor unapproachable for being younger. It went amazingly well with the Lamb and mushroom dish we had. There were good components of black cherry and hay without being to overpowering for some people at the table who “didn’t like red wine”. They really enjoyed this one.

Cheers!

Nieto Senetiner, Bodegas Don Nicanor 2004 Blend

Being that I’m new to wine, but a long-time “foodie,” my entries will be a blend of wine and food notes.  My interest in wine lays in the complexities of its components.  Just as a fabulous dish is made from the creative applications of various textures and tastes, I feel that wines are created in the the same fashion.  Finding and appreciating those aspects is what expanding my palate is all about.  So, generally, my notes will begin with the initial impression of a wine and, then move into how its taste changes when paired with food.

First pour of this wine had me awed by the deep ruby/garnet color.  A gorgeous rich-looking wine that had me really hopeful that its taste would be just as rich.  All I could pick up on the nose was black cherry and maybe a hint of a smoky wood-like smell.

The taste was just as I’d hoped — full-bodied with rich dark cherry and soft oak flavors.  The mid-palate was a complex layering of dark fruit (maybe plum?) chocolate, a subtle green flavor (which I’m determined to define at some point) and some great soft earthiness (of which I am normally not a big fan, but works well with those curious green flavors).  The finish was beautiful!  A long finish with a black pepper tanginess that I know many people will love.  Its stated at 14.5% and, normally, I would think this to be too much, but its great.  Maybe my palate is ready for bigger and better.  Or, as John W would say… great tannins and great acids make a great wine!

So, tonight, I grilled some beef tenderloin medallions and served them with some grilled asparagus and grill-roasted golden fingerling potatoes…. all prepped very simply with just kosher salt, fresh ground pepper and extra-virgin olive oil (except for the potatoes to which i added some red pepper flakes and a few other spices).  Let me just say… tonight’s choices couldn’t have been better!  A perfect pairing!  The grilled beef balanced beautifully with the oak flavors of the wine, yet enhanced the cherries.  And the asparagus brought forward those sublte green flavors — though I was still unable to define the taste.  But, it has me wanting to spend more time getting to know this wine, and that’s always a good thing!

All in all, this wine is worth every bit of the $22 i paid for it.. its one of those wines that makes you just want to spend time getting to know.  I’m really looking forward to seeing if this develops any differently.

2006 Thomas Leithner Gruener Veltliner

I originally bought this wine to drink on the 4th of July, as a nice change-of-pace white wine for hot weather.  As it turned out, the 4th wasn’t all that hot here in Portland, so I ended up just drinking way too many margaritas for my own good.  So here it is Monday, July 7th and I finally popped open this bottle to drink.  $10, 1L green (appropriate) bottle with a white bottle cap, 12% alcohol.  Yes, you saw that correctly, this wine is bottled with a bottle cap.  Clearly it is not meant to be aged any length of time at all.  I am actually not 100% sure this is actually vintage 2006 wine, as it is not labeled as such, but I am assuming it can’t be any older.

I drank this wine cold, out of the refrigerator, as my (admittedly limited) experience with GV has shown that it is not generally a white that should be enjoyed warm.

Nose: Nothing much to report here (drinking it cold, I didn’t expect much).  Smelled like white wine.

Taste: Delicious!  This was exactly what I was looking for in a summer white.  Nice and light, with excellent back-end acidity.  I had it with potato salad and hamburgers for dinner and it hit the spot.  For $10, I am going to buy a couple more bottles of this nice little Austrian gem and drink it up this summer.  Highly recommended by me.

Update, Day 2:

Nose: I worked really hard today to try to find something interesting to say about the nose.  I managed to dredge up some hints of butter, and once I let the wine warm up a bit, some fairly strong honey.  In fact, my main impression of the nose on day 2 is that it really smelled quite a bit like some mead that I’ve had.

Taste: Ok, I was searching for the green apple (thanks, Patrick), but what I got was actually green apple Jolly Ranchers.  I also get a fairly strong taste of lemon juice (the acidity, I guess) and a little butter, like on the nose.

It is interesting to note that this GV was actually still quite tasty, even warm.  I still like it and I’m definitely going to try to see if I can buy some more at the shop on Friday.

Introducing the “other” Jon

So I wanted to introduce myself to the community as well. John W. and I have become wine amateurs together, so John invited me to contribute to this blog as well. I should have some tasting notes after this weekend since I will be following the time honored tradition of drinking red wine and watching fireworks. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Jon F.

2005 Chateau La Pierre Levee

Another wine I picked up at Sandy’s, this time I think it was one we actually tasted that afternoon.  I remember thinking “Wow! This is a steal for $13!”.  I drank this wine over two days, so I’ll give my notes for the 2 days.  This wine is from the Cotes De Castillon, as you can see from the label and claims to be 14% alcohol.  I don’t get any fun label notes like with the previous wine, though.

Day 1: This was a “pop and pour” situation.  I needed some wine to drink with dinner, so I opened it up and let it sit for 10 minutes before pouring it.

The nose is pretty tight, just a little hint of mustiness through the alcohol.

The fruit on this wine is not overpowering, which I really appreciate right now.  The tannins on the back end are medium strong and it has a decent mid-palate with no drop-out in the middle.

Given that it is day 1, I’m not getting much more out of it right now.  Overall, I like it quite a bit and would give it an 89 points.  I think quite a good deal for $13!  Very pleasant, although not outstanding.

Day 2: I put this wine in the refrigerator overnight, to keep it cool in the summer heat.  I took it out at lunch time and tasted it at 3:30 in the afternoon, after deciding I could take off a bit early from work on the day before a long weekend.

Now the nose has opened up a bit and I am getting a bit of ripe fruit and some smell of cool herbs.  After smelling this, I went to our spice cabinet and started smelling everything to see if I could figure out what it was.  I think it was some strange combination of lavender, thyme and a little hint of oregano.  Please understand that these smells were not strong, just little hints below the fruit and alcohol.

My impression on first tasting this wine today is that the alcohol is a little strong, even at 14%.  It still has good mid-palate strength and a nice long finish.  There is some fruit, but not much more than yesterday.  I get a little bit of black cherries and maybe some raspberries and some other fruit that I can’t put my finger on.  There are some non-fruit components that my palate isn’t really able to identify at this point, but something a little richer than just fruit flavors.

All in all, I’d still give this wine an 89.  It is really enjoyable to drink and there’s nothing overtly negative going on.  The nose isn’t rich enough to put it up into the 90 range for me.  I enjoy it quite a bit and at $13, I think it’s a great steal.  I might have to see if I can pick up another bottle or so the next time I’m in the shop.

2006 Foloi

Most Friday afternoons, I go to Mount Tabor Fine Wines for their weekly wine tasting.  Since I wanted to try something new and I’ve been craving some acidic white wine in the Portland heat the past few weeks, I asked Sandy for a recommendation.  He recommended two Greek white wines and this was one of them.  The other I finished a few days ago, and I didn’t take any notes, so I’m going to skip.

This wine is described on the bottle as “Regional dry white wine of Pisatis”.  It is labeled as from the “Mercouri Estate, Greece” with an alcohol content of 12.3%.  It is made from the Rodatis grape variatal (never heard of it before this).  The blurb on the back says “..grown at altitude on the plateau of Pholoe, Ilias – an area famous in Greek mythology for its aromatic wines.”

My notes are from the 3rd day I had this wine and I did drink it cold, so take that for what it’s worth (what’s it worth?  Well, chilled wine can cover up unpleasantness and make a mediocre wine taste better.)

What did I think?  The nose was pretty blah, and I have no comments on it.  I had asked for a recommendation for a white wine with high acid.  This wine had a nice acidity to it, but it’s what I would describe as a “rounded acidity” rather than a razor sharp acidity like Gary will often describe.  It had a nice taste of fresh pears on the mid-palate with some hints of lemon as well.  I would describe this wine as “pears with a hint of lemon juice squeezed on top”.

Overall, I think this is a really nice hot-weather wine to enjoy chilled.  I’d rate it an 86.  Probably not worth the $20 I paid for it, but it was interesting to try something new and different.

What is this?

This is a blog about wine by people who are not wine experts or professionals.  I’ve been watching Gary Vaynerchuk at http://tv.winelibrary.com for a year now and I went to hear him speak last night.  He inspired me a little bit to take what I love to do (drink wine) and turn it into a outlet for creation of content.  I don’t own a video camera (yet) and I’m not a good writer, but I’m going to give it a shot.

What’s the niche?  The niche is that I’m going to try to gather some folks together who love wine, but are not wine professionals and have them write about the wine they drink.  I drink a lot of wine these days, and I can feel my palate changing on almost a daily basis.  Documenting that palate change as I try new wines and new grape variatals seems like a topic worthy of writing about.

At the moment, this blog is just me, but I have a few people in mind who I hope to get to help out.  If you would like to join the list of wine amateurs exploring their palates, please leave a comment or send me some email.  I’m planning on following the @garyvee model and answering every email and comment that I get, so don’t be shy!  My first actual wine-related post is coming soon (like tonight)!

John