Martin Códax 2006 Albariño

This lovely little wine is from the Rías Biaxas region of Spain.  Interesting little note: 90% of vines planted in this region are albariño.  So, I’m thinking they probably know what they’re doing with this varietal.  Martin Códax uses 100% albariño.

 

Color:  a beautiful yellow gold with definite sparks of bright gold…definitely a much richer color than a lot of whites.

 

Aroma:  offers peach, apple and pear with a hint of lemon zest

 

Flavors:  soft, not quite full body with wonderful peach and pear notes with  citrus-y highlights of lemon and grapefruit. It also has a soft minerality with makes it great to have with a meal.

 

The finish on this one is absolutely marvelous! It just slowly whispers away… like a beautiful decrescendo.

I had this with my favorite pasta dish: linguine tossed with shallots, garlic, extra virgin olive oil, shrimp, lemon and arugula.  This wine paired beautifully with the wonderful harmony of the minerals and arugula balanced with the highlighted citrus accents.  Light and lemony… yum!

 

The only other notation I have on this one is that when I had this chilled, it presented a much spicier mineral attack, but also lost those citrus notes on the flavor profile.  Not necessarily a bad thing… but something of note.

So, share with me…. ever have an albariño?

Zolo Torrontés 2007

Just a quick little note on another new grape for me..

and what an exciting find!!

This lovely wine from the Mendoza province of Argentina is a gorgeous pale yellow with beautiful green highlights and offers a delicate, yet incredibly aromatic, nose of tropical flowers and herbs.

And, the taste was just as incredible: brisk acids, medium-bodied and the flavors of white peach, pear, and a hint of lime. 

The finish can only be described as loooooong, soft and smooth.  Absoultely wonderful…. Absolutely yummy!

Enjoy this one not chilled to truly experience all its remarkable layers

Badger Mountain NSA Organic Riesling 2007

I was told that organic wines have a long way to go to match the quality of ‘regular’ wines, but my adventurous spirit won the day and I thought “What the heck… either way, I’ll have something to blog.”  And, can I just say “Hooray for adventurous spirits!!”  This little gem surprised me in the way it developed.

On Day 1, this beautiful pale gold wine offered beautiful aromatics of apple juice, pear and a hint of watermelon and the inital attack on the palatte is exactly what Riesling fans want: sharp acids and the minerality of those river rock that Gary V is always mentioning.  The mid-palatte opens with a very crisp apple and extremely soft pineapple flavors.  Then finishes with something that makes me think ’spicy oak’… kinda like if you were to put a piece of oak through a pepper grinder.  That’s exactly what popped into my mind.

Day 2 was the day of surprises.  The apple juice aroma nearly completely fell away and what was left was the gorgeous aroma of fresh ripe pear.  But, on the taste, the sharpness had a raw garlic-like bite to it.  The flavor profile had changed a bit, too, and I found myself thinking I’d stumbled upon a Perrier with pineapple juice (with that oak pepper sprinkled on top).

Definitely different for me… definitely adventurous… definitely something I’d enjoy again sitting by the pool on a hot summer day to wash away the day and welcome in a relaxing evening.

To get your “Wine On” or not…

OK so I meant to post this a couple weeks ago, but starting my new job interfered with my real life.  However I think it is still a relevant post, I hope you enjoy!

The last weekend of July was the IPNC (International Pinot Noir Conference) annual event. The event is touted as “an intimate gathering of Pinot noir lovers enjoying a weekend of wine, food and conviviality”. This years specific theme was “Sustainability without Sacrifice”. The question I have for the community is: Is it worth attending these type of functions?

Before I get into the question, it is only fair to have a better outline of what the IPNC does: For three days there are multiple tours and seminars one can attend. In addition, there are guest speakers, guests chefs and many tastings of course.  There are several dinners that include wine, all of which you can enjoy at the Linfield campus with easy access to your dorm room (yes you can really stay on campus!).

Also to be fair I have to say I attended the finale dinner (Salmon Bake) and the compressed version of their wine tastings (60 wines in t 3 hours) However, I did speak with many people who attended all the seminars and tried the wines over several days.

So to the question…

As an an educational exploration it is a great way to get a lot learned in a short period of time. Also my experience with other programs leads me to believe that immersion is a great way to really absorb a lot of information quickly. However the expense and time can be prohibitive. The 3 day event is not particularly family friendly. There are long periods of time away from your room and no good places for naptime (which can be a problem for some adults too). What I found particularly enjoyable was the Salmon bake. There were many (and I mean lots) of bottles of wine floating around. It was an enjoyable way to experience some good food, wine and good friends.

Ultimately I enjoyed the dinner the most which seems to confirm the “community” based wine exploration philosophy. at least at this time, for me… How about You?

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.