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.
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.]
I originally bo
ught 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.
