Part IV Chasing New Pinots

Getting back to the story . . . It's tough to keep track of all the new California Pinots that have come on the market in the last three or four years. Hardly ubiquitous these offerings, from the likes of Black Kite, De La Montanya, B. Kosuge, Three Saints, Segue, and Alta Maria, to name just a few, bespeak quality. IMO quality keeps improving across the board and excellent wines under $40 a bottle can be found readily. Without exaggeration, we're in a Pinot lover's dreamworld with bountiful, delicious offerings to be had across the board. Sigh!

As I mentioned in my last post, my neighbor with a real job in the wine industry slipped a bottle of the Alta Maria in my mailbox as a thank you for the emergency Alstatian riesling. I'd say it was a fair swap, all things being equal. The Alta Maria Vineyards website is a bit, well . . . eerie. "Salvation" is the first word to appear, then a statue of Mary, a "Devotee List" in lieu of the mailing list, other religious folderoll. A bit much for me as drinking the Alta Maria wine, while enjoyable, was hardly a religious experience. The winery makes Syrah, Mouvedre and Pinot and links your purchases together, so you have to buy x bottles of one varietal to get y bottles of another, and can't buy single bottles. If this relatively restricted approach to doing business is working then who am I to question success but internet ordering should be seamless and should focus on the buyer's wishes, not the seller's peculiarities and attempts at exclusivity or whatever else they are trying to prove here. At any rate, the gift wine was quite good though it did not really challenge the mystery contestant. Here are my notes:

Alta Maria Vineyards 2005 Pinot Noir, Santa Maria Valley, Bien Nacido Vineyard, Santa Barbara County. The wine checks in at 14.1% alcohol and is comprised of the N Block 115 clone and the Q Block Pommard clone.

Tasting Notes: Purple/violet in the glass, mint and blueberry nose, menthol dark fruits and violets. Nicely balance acidity, lush with some depth, quite rich finish of more dark fruits.

Rating: Very good.

Cheers, Barrld

The Mystery Continued--Part III

Just back from vacation, one where tragically I consumed no Pinot. Before I turn to my notes on the next challenger to the mystery Pinot, I received an unusual request from one of my neighbors, who is in the wine business. Seems that she was entertaining a client up the street from me and was buried with personal matters. She asked if she could "borrow" a bottle of a Alsatian wine, I told her my inventory, then carried a bottle of Riesling up to her front door, something that she really appreciated. At any rate, she returned the favor the next day with a bottle of . . . Pinot! Apparently the gift selection is sold out and, well I will put her choice up to the mystery challenge as well--suffice to say that I liked it well enough to jump on the mailing list and buy some Grenache and Syrah, even though the winery's Pinot was sold out.

The next challenger also hails from St. Rita Hills (Sta. is a ridiculous acronym) and is the work of the widow of Mike Bonaccorsi, whose death still remains a bit of a mystery, at least to me. That is how does a guy who is in prime of his life at age 42 (43? the reports list both ages) in good shape just drop dead? Heart attack? Give me a break! Kind of spooky if you asked me. Anyway, Jenne Lee Bonaccorsi has kept the Bonaccorsi Wine Company going strong and its wines continue to get favroable reviews and are very well liked by Laube. I had yet to try any Bonaccorsi b/c it struck me as a bit ghoulish to run out and buy its wines after Mike's death. Anyway, I got over that kneejerk reflex.

The wine in question is the Bonaccorsi 2004 Red Monkey Pinot Noir, Sta. Rita Hills. Checking in at 14.7% alcohol the wine is unfined, unfiltered and made without any "monkey business." I picked up a couple of bottles in my mixed case from the Wine Cask and paid $36 per, with the case discount. I enjoyed the first bottle of this wine I tried and will revisit it again shortly to confirm my notes. No reason not to go back to Bonaccorsi Pinots esp. if I can get them under the $40 price point.

Tasting Notes: Garnet in the glass, nose of plums and cherries. Cherries and blackberries mid-palate, structured and deep, earthy and juicy, with vanilla and birch bark tones. Long finish. Age worthy.

Rating: Excellent.

Cheers, Barrld

Mystery Pinot--Part Two

So I did score a case of the mystery Pinot, tracking it down through the retailer who advised that I could get additional wine (maybe) from the maker and then, the next day, I received a confirm that indeed a case was available with the 10% discount, meaning I spent about $34 for a wine that will easily trump cult Pinots at twice the price. Plus, I ended up owning 2 of the 55 cases, or a considerable percentage of the available juice. I like those numbers!

To fill out the initial partial case of my mystery Pinot from the retailer in question I pulled down 7 other bottles from a couple of Pinot producers that I hadn't previously tried. One was the Demetria Estate 2005 Pinot Noir Jours de Bonheur Gaia Vineyards, Sta. Rita Hills. The Gaia Vineyard used to be known as Ashley's Vineyard, producing fine juice for Brewer-Clifton, Melville, Tantara and many others in the area. Demetria now owns the vineyard and produces its Burgundian varietals from its own grapes. The 2005 Pinot was grown, produced and bottled by Demetria, is unfined and unfiltered and has 14.2% alcohol. I paid about $35 retail for the wine, including the case discount. Demetria is biodynamic and this is the winery's first release. A bit more than 700 cases were made of it.

Tasting Notes: Violet in the glass, cherry nose, lots of very forward fruit. Juicy, expressive of red fruits, jasmine and sage, a carefree Pinot. Expressive and balanced, the wine is easy to drink and thirst quenching, going well with a host of food choices. While not complicated and with little mystique, it is thoroughly enjoyable for its bouquet of flavors and its drinkability.

Rating: Very good.


Cheers, Barrld

Pinot Mystery--Part One

Well, I found the best Pinot in memory but I can't tell you about it b/c only 55 cases were made by a guy from another country who is the full time winemaker at a Santa Ynez winery. I'm sure his moonlighting is kosher but don't know what his plans are for next year as I found out that he was pedaling his first vintage of the heretofore unknown wine door to door. I found the wine via an email add from a Santa Barbara area wine retailer of repute (who told me that they tasted it and flipped) and then bought the rest of the store's inventory so there is none of this wine on the market from 2005. Why am I telling you this, if not just to piss you off? More on that question in a bit.

Anyway, to confirm the quality of this particular Pinot from the Sta. Rita Hills appellation, I forced myself to drink 4 other fine Pinots out there, amidst the current sea of very good to excellent California Pinots from 2004 and 2005, to see if the fave held up to the test. Over the course of the next week or so I will give you my notes on the four comparison wines, then maybe I will give you more clues, and some notes on the mysterious blockbuster. I may have a means of getting more of this wine and, if I do, will reveal its identity to you.

Emeritus. Founded by Brice Jones of Sonoma-Cutrer fame, 2005 was the opening vintage of Emeritus. Don Blackburn, the winemaker, has a lot of quality experience with Pinot and knows the various Sonoma appellations. In June I bought a case of one of its two inaugural wines after Laube extolled its virtues. The wine in question is the 2005 Emeritus Pinot Noir William Wesley Vineyards Sonoma Coast, which was produced and bottled by the Emeritus folks. It checks in at 14.3% alcohol and I spent about $34 on it direct from Emeritus, with the case discount from the winery. Laube found it full bodied with firm tannins in need of time. I disagree with much of his notes, and the guzzlers chimed in quite consistently following a second tasting of the Emeritus after lusting over the afore-mentioned mystery wine.

Tasting Notes. Ruby red in the glass, dark cherry and currants on the nose, red fruits and tannins, tightly wound, almost closed and needs time (my only agreement with Laube). Lovely bouquet, earthy, tart blackberry and refined, medium bodied with structural elements that could come together nicely, just not yet. Second tasting was consistent, though the Emeritus suffered in comparison to my blockbuster.

Rating: Very good.

Cheers, Barrld

White Burgundy Value

With the dollar's continual pummeling at the hands of the euro, the pound and other currencies around the world it is much more difficult to find good values from abroad, especially from the old world. Take that up a notch with excellent wines from all over France out of the 2005 vintage and you're looking at $30 a bottle "bargains" from across the pond. Thus, though I regularly get pinged about the reasonable prices of French juice, the tag line generally includes a price north of $30, with most in the $45+ range. D. Sokolin hypes a lot of RP rated wines and I have done a lot of business with that retailer, usually through its fine salesman Daron. Sokolin's prices are generally fair, some times the best (you have to be choosy and use Wine-Searcher relentlessly) but even then it's impossible to find well priced 2005 Bourdeaxs or red Burgundies from anywhere. When a mixed case offering of 2005 white Burgundy from Sokolin crossed my desk a few weeks ago I ran the wines through the wine-searcher grind and found that the prices were very good, all below $25 a bottle. I bought the case and, after waiting for the wine to settle a bit, opened one of the 3 varietals I bought. My picture here shows the 2003 vintage--it was the best one I could copy from the net; I drank the 2005.

Vincent Girardin is apparently the negotiant of the moment in Burgundy and seems to be everywhere. He produces all sorts of wines out of his "Domaine" (this wording appears on wines where he owns the grapes too, but I suspect that all of his wines are produced at the Domaine), which is in Meursault though he sources red and white grapes from all over Burgundy. I've had many of his wines and find them to be very good to excellent with a high quality to value ratio, though his prices have also crept northward of late. I hadn't really paid attention that I was buying mostly Girardin wines when I ordered the case but that's what I ended up with and am not complaining now. The moral of the story is to pay attention to the "good value" emails as you might find one that's true.

Tasting Notes: The wine is Vincent Girardin 2005 Rully 1er Cru Les Cloux which checks in at 13.5% alcohol. I paid $24 a bottle from Sokolin. The wine is straw in the glass, opening with delicate notes of lemon, plumeria and vanilla, very fragrant. Citrus/lime notes take over mid-palate offering a refreshing juicy wine, with a creamy finish that includes gooseberries and spice. Balanced and nicely acidic, this is both an easy drinking every day wine and good party wine with seafood grilling. I'd buy this again.

Rating: Very Good.

Cheers, Barrld

Pinot Heaven

I've written about Red Car Wine Company previously, with its art deco labels and back of the bottle chapters telling noir tales of affairs of the heart. Though most of Red Car's wines are Syrahs, both single vineyards and blends, it also produces a couple of Pinots, mostly under the Amour Fou sub-label. With an address in the heart of Los Angeles, all grapes are sourced and produced elsewhere, at what used to be more than one co-operative. The Company now has a winery in Santa Maria, though I wonder about trucking Pinot grapes there from the Russian River, given the delicacy and think skins of these grapes. As you can see below, it works somehow.

At any rate, the Red Car Syrahs are generally huge and jammy, but very well made and stylistic. I've found the couple of Amour Fou Pinots that I've tried from the 2002 vintage to be very good but missing a bit of complexity and length. I opened a 2003 Amour Fou the other day and, well, it's the real deal. I picked up this wine direct from Red Car for about $40 a bottle when it was released 2 or so years ago.

Tasting Notes: The wine is Red Car 2003 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir Amour Fou Chapter Two, which checks in at 14.9% alcohol. The grapes were sourced 70% from Keefer Ranch and 30% from Martinelli and a good dose of new French oak was used along the way. The wine is a lovely garnet in the glass and virtually explodes with alluring fragrances of camellias and blackberry pie, with a dash of white pepper on the nose. Chocolate, dark fruit and earth control the mid-palate, framing a dynamic set of flavors, complex and juicy. Full bodied but not heavy, with good balance and acidity. Long, long finish with tiers of flavors, mixing robust raspberry, smoke, fennel, blueberry compote, wow! This is the complete package, a classy, delicious wine of many dimensions. Bravo!

Rating: Superb!! (only my second one!)

Cheers, Barrld

Over Rated?

While I can't rank Zinfadel in my top 5 wine varietals, I do occasionally enjoy that deep purple juice both straight up and in well crafted blends. At the same time, the sheer full throttle vibrancy of some Zins, coupled with the grape juicy sweet style I find in less expensive Zins makes me wary, esp. at potlucks. My preference for stylized, refined wine with multiple tiers of flavor tends to exclude most Zins, which lean towards a huge fruit/alcohol punch in the mouth. Honestly, though I base my prejudices on my early wine drinking days in the late 90s and I know that Zins have evolved away from one dimensionality. All the more reason for me to pick up a few bottles of The Prisoner from 2003.

A guy I know has a considerable gray market deal going in his house in Brentwood. Where he gets the wines, I don't know, but his prices are good, his selection excellent and no sales tax. I've bought a couple of cases of fine first growths from him (1994s, very well priced) and some of this and that. Anyway, I was buying some 2002 white Burgundy and my friend J said, ever try this? He plucked a bottle of The Prisoner from his cluttered shelves and handed it over. Good juice, he said, Laube loved it. Being a sucker, I bought 3 bottles for $22 each, did I say no sales tax? Anyway, I drank one soon thereafter (no memories one way or another) and lost the other two somewhere in the cellar. I found the bottle consumed for this review when I was rearranging my wines. I took a peek at the WS ratings and saw that Laube gave the wine a 92 in 2005 so I looked forward to tipping back a couple of glasses. Unfortunately, that proved to be a let down.

Tasting Notes: The wine is Orin Swift The Prisoner, Red Table Wine 2003. Swift is obviously sourcing juice from various AVAs as the wine notes that it was "Bottled in Napa" but has no AVA listed. The wine checks in at 15.2% alcohol and is a blend of Zin, Cabernet Sauvignon, Charbono (from where? I thought that all of the Charbono vines in CA were replaced long ago) and Petit Sirah. Not sure of the percentages as there is no info on the website but it's clear that Zin controls the blend. Dark purple in the glass, alcoholic nose with berries and clay, black fruit and maple syrup mid-palate, with a decent though tannic, viscous blackberry finish. Frankly I expected more--better fruit expressions and integration, softer tannins, fuller balance. Honestly, I couldn't have a second glass and had to drink the bottle over a couple of days, which took the starch out of the tannins but dulled down the fruit too. Maybe I will give the last bottle away.

Rating: Good.

Cheers, Barrld

More Mailed Mayhem

I jump on mailing lists after only the slightest provocation; case in point, Copain Wine Cellars. Years back its owner, Wells Guthrie, was featured in WS for starting his own shop in Santa Rosa with purchased grapes and borrowed equipment. Turns out that Wells, who looks like he just graduated from high school, was the tasting coordinator at WS in San Francisco, for a while then moved to the Rhone and hung out with JL Chave. After returning to the USA, he signed on as a vineyard and cellar rat at Turley, where I expect he was carded every afternoon.

At any rate, I jumped on the list after reading the story, expecting great things, and bought Copain's wines like crazy, Syrah, Pinot, Zin, the boxes stacked up. His Honor RP gave Wells some high scores fairly early on in Copain's life so traffic was brisk and it seemed as though Copain was offering wines every month. While I liked the wines from Copain and found them to be fairly priced, I became a Copain-ed out, noticing a sameness of style bordering on heavy extraction on all of its reds. I don't think I ordered any reds over the past two years. But last year an offering of Rousanne came over the transom and, being into white Rhones, I thought try a couple of bottles. Intending on ordering 3 I somehow hit 9 and that's what I received. Drag. I tried one bottle soon after receipt, thought it was OK then forgot about the rest. Since I was moving wines into my new cellar room, more on that point some other time, I spotted the Rousanne and popped a cork. Turns out this is a serious wine. So I just opened another bottle and will review it live, right here in front of the computer. Check out the picture!

The wine is the Copain 2004 Rousanne, James Berry, Paso Robles. It checks in at 14.9% alcohol (not sure of the decimal as it is in tiny print that is impossible to read) and I bought it from the mailing list for about $30 a bottle. Not much info from the website on this wine, and I think this was Copain's first effort with this grape. I'm drinking it at about 63 degrees F which really changes the nature of the juice; I've found that Rhone white lose a bit of structure and flavor elements if too cold.

Tasting notes: Straw/gold in the glass, pears and plumeria on the nose, honey suckle, white peach and Bartlett pears mid-palate, lichi finish, long and syrupy. Very floral and fragrant, textured and refined, good mouth feel. A lovely glass of wine. Now I think I don't have enough! Definitely a keeper. Consistent notes over two tastings/slurping during the last two weeks.

Rating: Excellent.

Cheers, Barrld

Loving Languedoc

In celebration of wine blogger Wednesday's quest for Languedoc and Roussillon wines under $30, I scanned the virtual shelves of WineEx and found 3 bottles of wines from Rene Rostaing, who I vaguely knew from his cult status in Cote Rotie--I've not had any of his "La La" reds yet but do have a couple of bottles from 1999 and 2000 waiting for the right moment to enjoy. The wine in question is the 2003 Rene Rostaing Dom. Puech Chard Coteaux du Langeudoc, which cost $27 a bottle and checks in at 13% alcohol. The wine is apparently 80% Syrah, 10% Grenache and 10% Mourvedre, but I could not confirm that with any certainty. I drank two of the three bottles I picked up over the past few weeks, with consistent tasting notes from both.

Tasting Notes: dark red in the glass, blueberry bark nose, gravel, herbs of Provence and some black fruit dominate mid-palate, with slightly harsh tannins and a touch of effervescence that blows off after a few minutes. Fairly balanced though unrefined with no finish to speak of. This wine is rustic, with various sharp edges, and seems unfinished, as though a key step in the final vinification process is missing. Perhaps the grapes are too young from this vineyard to make a more complete, complex wine. I could drink this Languedoc now and then and be reasonably satisfied but know that I can find better Syrah blends for $27 or less out there.

Rating: Good.

Cheers, Barrld

Pinot in the Fog

As Laube notes in his blog of 4/25, the search for Pinot terroir is booming and die hard Napa owners are picking off Sonoma Coast properties as fast as they can sign their loan documents. Jason Pahlmeyer bought a 70 acre ranch for $500K in '99 but would probably have to pay 10 times that today, given the startling success of Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir (see Kosta Browne for an example) and the shrinking availability of accessible land.

I guess the folks at Joseph Phelps Vineyards also picked up some Sonoma Coast property a while back, because the inaugural vintage of the 2004 Fogdog Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast was released about a year ago. Here's the site link with a lot of info about the wine: http://www2.ibgcheckout.com/phelps/catalog/view_product.jsp?product_id=1058&cat_id=1002

I understand that Craig Williams, formerly the head winemaker at Phelps, is in charge of the fogdog project and I have to put in a good word for Craig. My friend Jeff and I were the Christie's California Only tasting in June 2000, along with my two sisters, who joined me at the auction the next day. The tasting was followed by a wine maker's dinner at Spago. Every table had a noted winemaker and Craig hosted our group, which was made up of 6 folks who had just blown through 70 or so fine California wines at the tasting and, in a word, were toasted (OK so we forgot to spit). Craig and his wife Robin (sp?) were sober and thought we were terribly witty and charming, or so it appeared. At any rate, they were wonderful dinner companions, the food terrific and between courses we took bottles from one table to swap with another. Armed with various Phelps gems that I wrestled from Craig, I coaxed some Pinot out of Bob Cabral, some Merlot from a bottle w/o label from Dan Duckhorn and some secret Cab from Paul Draper, among countless other first class California winemakers. It was an unforgettable evening that was never to be repeated and I consider myself lucky to have attended. We still tell stories about the dinner, though most of them make fun of me purloining Craig's wine and stumbling from table to table, drunk as a skunk. All true, though my wife drove me home.

Back to the wine--according to the label, a "fogdog" is a"bright and clear spot that appears in the fog" that inundates the northern California coast line. Cool! The wine checks in at 13.8% alcohol, is unfined and unfiltered and looks to have spent about 15 months in new and used French oak. According to the link above, the grapes were source from three Sonoma County vineyards in Freestone, California: Freestone Vineyard (70%); Quarter Moon Vineyard (26%); and Ferguson Vineyard (4%), though I don't know how much of this wine was made. I bought it online for about $35 a bottle.

Tasting notes--Clear garnet in the glass, with a bit of effervescence. Not overly aromatic, though a bit of lead and other metallic notes on the nose. Juicy red and black cherries compete mid-palate, with tart currant flavors and notes of wet earth and moss. Very delicate, almost fragile in the mouth, with a long, balanced finished boasting tastes of a mixed berry fruit compote. Fine first offering though I suspect that, as these vines age, this combination will produce a more robust and developed wine. I can't imagine that the 2004 fogdog will get any better with age so pop those corks soon.

Rating--Very good, quaffable.

Cheers, Barrld

Mailing List Mania

Some might say, with a double dose of envy, that my position on a number of prime mailing lists is very fortunate for me and my cellar. The reality is far more complicated: to keep an allocation in place you have to buy a lot of wine, mostly at full retail. My cellar used to be full of Flowers until I stopped buying it when Greg LaFollette left (though my Dad and sister still take their fill of the biennial offerings) and now I have more Pride Mountain wines than any other. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing bad about Pride's offerings but they are expensive (all the reserves are over $100 per bottle and the regular lots are in the $50+ range). When will I have the chance to drink the 6 bottles of the 2004 reserve cab I just bought, esp. given that I have all the reserve cabs back to 1997?? I could sell them but that's just not me, I don't buy wine to make money. Then add on Kosta Browne, Peter Michael, Rhys, among too many others (no Harlan or Screaming Eagle, which is just fine) and I end up with a clogged up cellar. Don't order and off the list you go, thus the dilemma and concomitant traffic jam.

Which brings me to today's wine, from Rochioli, a Sonoma/Russian River Valley winery that I lusted for over many years. For the longest time I only could buy its Sauvignon Blanc, which I did with abandon. Then, a drop or two of Chardonnay; double down I said. Estate Pinot followed, then a year or so ago the gold rush, vineyard designated Pinots and Chards. Time to go large, esp. when I now have a secret partner to help me cover the costs. My allocations have increased accordingly and I have more than a couple of bottles of fine whites and reds from Rochioli, which I can share with the neighborhood guzzlers, esp. the estate wines.

Today's wine is the Rochioli Estate 2003 Pinot Noir Russian River Valley, grown produced and bottled at the winery. Other than the alcohol level, 14.7%, I don't have much data about this wine as Rochioli doesn't have a website, which is certainly OK by me. I lost the short data sheet that came with the offering too.

Tasting notes: Clear (must be fined) red cherry in the glass, earthy mushroom nose, very tightly wound at first, sharp and pleasantly tart with currants and pomegranates mid-palate and a loamy vibrant finish. The wine opens ups a touch but remains rather austere, a premiere cru Burgundy of sorts from a lesser village, juicy, with slate and sharp features, but missing a fruit backbone found in its better competitors.

Rating: Very good, quaffable.

Cheers, Barrld

Wine Blog Wednesday #33

Takes us to the Midi, the Languedoc--Rousillon region by the third Wed of May. Check out the link http://weingolb.blogspot.com/2007/04/wine-blogging-wednesday-33-will-be.html.

Best, Barrld

Big, Balanced Syrah

Having been a participant (read buyer) of the Wine Cask futures program for many years, I think I started buying the wines back in 98 or 99, it really is fascinating to see how the Santa Barbara and related viticultural areas have thrived and risen to world class levels in just a relatively few years. Brewer Clifton, Sea Smoke, Kaena, Curran to name a few have all passed through the WC futures book, which went from a Xerox of 30 wineries to an internet and printed booklet of double that number. Frankly, on the quality value front, the wines offered are top notch and each year there are dozens of discoveries available to try.

Behind the scenes as far as organization and realization is Doug Margerum, who works (owns? not sure) the Wine Cask, a fantastic retail shop and companion restaurant just off of State Street in Santa Barbara. Doug has to speak for himself but I suspect that being around wine for so long, then organizing a number of small growers and producers in the first few futures program spurred him to say why not try my hand at things. I ignored some of his early offerings, thinking that he had a kind of insider's path to the book and that his juice may not be really worthy, but for his role as overseer and such. To Doug's credit, his wines were priced very reasonably; ultimately I bit and bought some of his Sauvignon Blanc, which came in numbered bottles, something I thought was very cool. Though a bit rustic and grassy the Margerum SB from the 2002 vintage was well received by the guzzlers, and was priced right at about $15 a bottle.

Anyway, two years ago in the spring of 2005 I bought some of Margerum's 2004 Syrah (I'm pretty sure it was in the low $20 range or I wouldn't have bought it), which I received about a month ago. I don't have a lot of details about the production of this wine, when picked, barrel usage, case production, etc. I will guess and say that it was a late Oct. 2004 harvest, fermented stainless, 30% new French oak, 30% new American oak and 40% neutral wood, with about 20 months in barrel and another 3 0r 4 in bottle before release with maybe 200 cased produced but I could be way off. Here's the wine for you to consider.

The Margerum 2004 Syrah Alondra de los Prados Vineyards, Santa Ynez Valley (bottle number 00217), checks in at a whopping 15.9% alcohol. I expected a hot or at least smoldering wine, given the tendency of highly alcoholic Syrah's to not integrate so well, esp. when young. Not so here, this is truly delicious, balanced wine that has more CdP characteristics than the typical boomer Syrah from the southern California regions. Doug obviously knows what he is doing, the wine shows a high level of craftsmanship and a quality that's hard to find at twice the price.

Tasting Notes: Purple in the glass, nose of blackberry compote/jam, rich caramel, cedar and chocolate notes mid-palate, rustic earth tones and some base spices like pepper and bay leaf, mouthcoathing, integrated and voluptuous flavors with a very long sweet dark fruit finish. Evident tannins suggest a long life here which, I suspect, will mellow over time making this a fuller fruit bouquet and add more complexity and flavor distinctions.

Rating; Excellent and a superb value.

Cheers, Barrld

A New Pinot I Wanted to Hate

Given my perchance for Pinot Noir, you’re probably wonder why I would ever hate any PN before even taking a sip. You’ll be more confounded to learn that a Pinot from the producer of the PN in question received Laube’s highest Pinot rating ever, that the producer has a very tightly allocated mailing list and that I’m actually on it. What’s to hate?? OK so the producer in question is the Kosta Browne Winery and their first release of small quantities of their Pinot immediately created cult-like status for the winery. Therein lies the rub, I hate cults, religious, political, social, wino, I don’t want to be part of anything so extreme, so blind to reality and variety, so brainwashed. Plus, truth be told I didn’t like Laube’s smug, look what we at WS discovered, review of KB’s first releases a year or so ago, as if he had something to do with the very high quality of the wines being produced at KB. Get over yourself, James, you had nothing whatsoever to do with Kosta Browne's wine making success. Finally, there are a number of respected critics that find KB’s style—big, bold, fruit forward, to be the antithesis of the restrained, mysterious, delicate Pinots (read Burgundies) that they favor. Put that mish mash together and you get my pre-opening mind set.

So I had a couple of guests over the other night, my brother and our friend Joe, who, along with my wife, served as my guinea pigs for the first bottle of Kosta Browne Pinot that I’ve opened. Tough sledding, I know, but someone had to do it, along with sitting there and eating my food (we also had a bottle of the 200o Beaucastel Blanc, which was lovely, before the KB, and the 2003 Delectus Oakville afterwards, which was also quite good but did not match the KB Pinot). I tasted the wine in private away from them first, writing down my initial thoughts, taking three glasses downstairs to the thirty trio, then returning to the wine again by myself, all in an effort to not be persuaded by anything they said or noted. This is my blog, BTW, so I really don't give a shit what others think in the context of what I taste.

The wine in question was the Kosta Browne 2004 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast, which I purchased directly from the winery for about $42. It checks in at a robust 14.7% alcohol. According to the KB website, the 2004 Sonoma Coast is a blend of four vineyards; Kanzler, Guisti Ranch, Pleasant Hill and Dutton-Manzana. Apparently, all of these vineyards lie in and around Green Valley, which is one of the coolest climates in Sonoma County. Seventeen months of barrel aging with 31% new oak. Sorry but I don't think you can find this in the market but if you see it on some wine list somewhere, well do what you have to do.

Tasting Notes: Very dark red, almost indigo in the glass. Nose of ripe black cherries, smoky and sweet mid-palate, fantastically rich and plush, dark fruits, with notes of slate and chocolate supporting great structure. Long smooth finish with blackberries that is almost Cab like. This is not a Pinot for the faint of heart, with its bold flavors and textures but it’s a delicious wine made by craftsmen who really know what they are doing. Bottom line, this is a wine to love not hate and the four of us drank every last drop of it.

Rating: Excellent

Cheers, Barrld

Promotional Madness

Look every wine blogger secretly would be thrilled to become the next big time wine critic, making a living drinking wine every day, regularly tasting some of the finest wines ever made, traveling to a number of the coolest places in the world, never paying for wines to be tried, fame (at times infamy) amongst a multitude of peers; the life and lifestyle are very appealing, at least in a vacuum. Given the importance of blogs to wineries these days, especially those in California, various established bloggistas get on the promotional bandwagon and review wines sent to them for free, as part of a winery's marketing scheme. While numerous wine critics in print swear off of freebies, most notably His Majesty RP, and the Spectator only tastes promotional wines double blind, the blog world, being more democratic (desperate?), accepts wines on promotion for non-blind review. From my casual survey of blogs well established enough to attract regular samples from wineries, especially new ones that are trying to garner a name and marketable good press, adequate disclosure is made that the wine was received for the express purpose of a review following the tasting. Nothing sinister here, journalistic integrity is not at risk.

For me, this puny, modestly read blog hasn’t stirred up too much interest except amongst family and friends. I have accepted the fact that writing for the WS is not in my future, unless it’s in the Letters to the Editor section. To date, all of the wines I’ve reviewed here have come from my personal cellar and have been paid for with my own hard earned greenbacks. That is until now . . . full disclosure everyone.

THE WINE UP FOR REVIEW HERE WAS SENT TO ME PROMOTIONALLY—YEP FOR FREE!

Honestly it’s more complicated than that—from another blog I read that Twisted Oak Winery had a contest to write the “tasting notes” for the back label of its current white Rhone blend. When I perused the website I saw that eager bloggers could send an email about their site and if found worthy a promotional bottle could be sent. I pinged the winery, one thing lead to another and I received a bottle of the Twisted Oak 2005 Calaveras County *%#&@!, a red Rhone-style blend, in a two bottle box, including mostly geek notes about the wine, grape selection, harvest info, sites, data, etc. along with a rubber chicken, which did not have any tasting notes. My son named the chicken "Clucky" and he and my daughter regularly play with it, so I doubt that it will ever see the inside of a pot.

Now the Twisted Oak website is hilarious, very offbeat, bordering on profane (though I don't find it "twisted" in any fashion), and generally nutty. The folks at TO do not take themselves seriously so I kind of wondered how they would treat their wines. As you can see from the note below, it turns out that TO really focuses its efforts on wine making, and they seem to have gotten that part down. Just where is Calaveras County? Didn't Mark Twain chase frogs there or some such thing? Locationally, if you were driving from Santa Cruz to Lake Tahoe as the crow flies you would jog through Calaveras. The TO winery is located in the Sierra Nevada foothills about 2000 feet above sea level, in the heart of California gold country.

Another relevant point--as you know, I'm profligate when it comes to buying wines that catch my fancy. Thus, I would never over rate a wine that I received for free to curry favor with a winery, unless it was DRC. At the same time, one part of me wanted to be really rigorous in my review of the 2005 *%#&@! to show that I was a serious critic and not some sap searching the web for free shit. Then of course I tried the wine and, well, even the most hard headed taster will find it appealing. This is good juice and, if I ever get any room in my now overflowing cellar, I plan on actually buying some for the summer season.

Notes on the Wine: Given the informative "geek sheet" that came with the wine, let me pass on some details--Mourvedre from two distinct vineyards makes up 51% of the wine, followed by 33% Syrah and 16% Grenache, again from two separate vineyards; the majority of the grapes were sourced from Calaveras County. The wine checks in at 14.1% alcohol and costs $28 on the website, though with various discounts and such, you're looking at $23 or so a bottle. The wine spent 11 months in a mixture of new and 1 year old French oak and older American and neutral oak.

Tasting Notes: Garnet in the glass. Perfumed nose of chocolate, blackberry and jasmine, black plum and graphite mid-palate, well textured and meaty, with notes of game and brioche. Good finish with sweet dark fruit, smoke and cardamon. This is a complex, multi-faceted wine that is very satisfying to drink alone and will match very well with meats from the grill and rustic, spicy offerings. Appealing to a variety of palates, this offering will hold its own against some of the better 2004 CdP's on the market today. Bravo.

Rating: Excellent.


Cheers, Barrld

1999 Red Teeth Part 2

I never really got the Australian Shiraz craze; giant purple fruit bombs that stained your teeth and burned your mouth with their 15% to 16% alcohol. We're talking a "G'day" punch in the mouth. Where's the texture, the nuances, the refinement? I've never had Penfolds Grange, Hill of Grace, Hobbs or any of the others from the $100 plus club from OZ; perhaps that's where one can find an exquisite wine from Down Under. I bought a couple of bottles of the Thorne-Clark Shotfire Ridge Shiraz 2003 for about $20 a bottle and, contrary to the stellar WS review and 93 point rating I found the wine to taste like liquid grape jam with a heavy helping of black pepper. It settled down by the third day on my kitchen counter but who needs to wrestle elegance out of a raging bull of a wine? I should have know from the name that I'd be picked buckshot out of my teeth after every sip.

I did make a foray into the Aussie world at random when I was sitting minding my own business at a 2001 Christie's Beverly Hills auction. A flurry of activity on some previously lots created one of those weird auction lulls when it seems that no one is paying attention. A case of Henry's Drive 1999 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Padthaway came up and no one bid on it. Being a helium hand, my paddle shot up at the opening bid which was less than the low range in the catalogue. No one else bid so it was "SOLD" to paddle #284, aka me, for about $24 a bottle. Honestly, I had no idea what I purchased and thought that I was buying a Shiraz instead of a Cab. As Homer would say, "DOH!" A couple of key strokes later I read the story of this South Australian winemaking region, the mail carrying stage coaches, etc. etc. Sparky and Sarah Marquis, later of Marquis Phillips and the well publicized fallout with Dan Phillips, accusations of theft/mismanagement/embezzlement abounding, made this wine back in 1999 and they did a fine job of it.

Tasting Notes: Dark red/violet in the glass, black plums and currants on the nose, some classic cab notes of liquorice, cloves and leather. Good acidity and balance. No need to hold this one any longer as it's peaked. In a blind tasting I would have guessed a northern Rhone rather than a South Australian cab. Curiously no alcohol content was listed on the label, I wonder how that slipped through the cracks.

Rating: Very good, quaffable.

Cheers, Barrld

Red Teeth Circa 1999--Part 1

I really didn't get into collecting wines until about 10 years ago, when my palate was in its infancy and my acquisition strategy was unformed (as compared to now, where it's almost entirely random and profligate). I picked up two completely different reds from very distinct sources at about the same time and, by chance, ended up drinking them back to back a few weeks ago. The serendipitous connection aside, the wines confirmed that good juice comes from a lot of places and that a diverse cellar with finds from all points of the globe can be quite wonderful. Enough waxing poetically, here's one of them, with the whole stinking story to boot:

Bethel Heights Vineyards. We were up in Portland Oregon for a wedding in the spring of 2001 (before the kids) and went out to dinner at a restaurant called Bluehour in the Pearl District--kind of snooty but good food. The story gets longer--I asked the wine guy for an Oregon Pinot recommendation and he brought out a bottle of St. Innocent Brickhouse Vineyard from 1998 I believe. It was a delicious wine and since we were free the next day, the wife indulged me and we went in search of St. Innocent Winery, which turned out to be located in a drab industrial space in Salem. We were the only visitors to the tasting "room" which was merely an office with an empty folding table; no one to be seen. After a minute, a young girl who appeared to be 16 greeted us then went to the refrigerator and brought out a half dozen bottles for us to try. Everything was quite good, from the Pinot Gris to the Chard to the Pinot Noirs that she offerred. We started to talk about buying wines and to show interest in knowing more, as compared to the usual glug and gallop crew, so our server went and got the winemaker and owner, Mark Vlossak. We learned that Mark was a negotiant in the Burgundy style of producer and owned no grapes, trucking everything into this dump, uh I mean site for processing etc. Mark brought out some of the better Pinots, thank you! and showed us around. No one else showed up during our entire visit and the teenager disappeared too. We were touring the fermentation space, which was full of spotless stainless steel vats, all empty as he had just put his 2000s into barrels, when the door of one of the vats opens up and out popped a little blond girl.

"So, that's the secret." I said, being so inclined. "Shhh!" Mark smiled, "let's keep it between us, OK?" We got a laugh out of his daughter's hide and seek antics and ended up buying a shitload of his wines for some real good prices, with an extra discount from Mark the winemaker, now friend for life. Plus we picked up some St. Innocent baseball caps for free! Net of it all, I asked Mark what one winery would he visit if he only had time to visit one more winery, which was all the time we had given our extended tour of St. Innocent. "Bethel Heights!" he said and off we went, with a great story, some fine wine (being shipped to our house in California) and a second quest to find good affordable Oregon Pinot Noir.

Now Bethel Heights is a real winery, with acres of grapes, a beautiful tasting room on a hill overlooking its vineyards, a picnic area (ubiquitous but lovely) and all the other consumables and comforts that you expect to find when you go to taste wine. It's about 20 minutes from Salem heading generally north and we found it rather easily with Mark's precise directions, though I suspect we would have struggled had he trekked out on our own. We tasted through a bunch of whites and reds, basically closing the tasting room down. We bought some Chards and Pinots and picked up this beauty, the Bethel Heights Vineyards 1999 Pinot Noir, Nysa Vineyard, Willamette Valley. I bought this wine from the winery direct for $30 and it checks in at a balanced 13.2% alcohol. Now I'm not sure how Oegon Pinots are supposed to age but 8 years may be pushing past the peak of some of the better selections from there. The Nysa seemed a bit mature when I opened it, though it livened up in the glass after a few minutes and was at its best after about an hour or so. Here are my notes: Nose of prunes and minerals, smoky mid-palate with blackberry and pomegranant notes. Earthy, and refined, its tannins are long gone. Cherries on the finish. This vintage needs to be consumed very soon.

Rating: Very good, quaffable.

Cheers, Barrld

Glug, Glug, Glug

Here's a few more quick reviews of the wines I pounded through in the last 6 weeks or so, three very different whites from the same grape, for your consideration.

Melville 2004 Chardonnay Clone 76 Inox, Santa Rita Hills. I've reviewed Melville wines previously and noted that Greg Brewer is the mastermind at work here. Melville grows its own grapes too, something that is becoming relatively rare, with so many virtual wineries out there buying grapes from the 15 wines in the K block, elevation 1,111 SW, you know what I mean. The idea of farmer cum winemaker is more appealing to me, at least in theory. At any rate the Inox is made entirely in stainless steel and never sees a speck of oak, doesn't even look at a barrel. I guess the idea to get more of a classic Chablis grand cru thing going here but, while I enjoy an Inox now and then, it has never evoked images of a good Fevre to me. The wine checks in at 14.9% alcohol, suggesting a long hang time (do I hear over extracted??). I picked this bottle up direct from the winery and paid something in the mid-$20s. Here are my notes: Green/straw in the glass, with effervescence. Yes I mean some bubbles, weird, but not the first time for a bottle of Inox. Apricots and peaches on the nose, juicy, some minerality with tropical notes and pineapple ice at the finish. Melon aftertaste. Not enough acidity for me, making the wine a bit cloying.

Rating: Good.

Landmark 2003 Lorenzo Chardonnay, Russian River Valley. I'm a member of the Landmark Vineyards club and have accumulated a number of Pinots and Chards from the winery over the years. While the wines are quite consistent, and the Overlook version of their Chardonnay is a consistently great value, my tastes have moved on and it's time to quit getting this juice. I bought this bottle with the club discount for the low $40s, too expensive in hindsight. The wine checks in at 14% alcohol and, as with the Inox, was grown, produced and bottled by the folks at Landmark. The notes: Strawgold in the glass, lemon zest on the nose, vanilla and apricots with integrated oak throughout. Rich and syrupy with good acidity but not really structured or complex for me. A pleasantly tart finish with floral notes. Some life here but given the quality of wines out there, this should be a $25 wine.

Rating: Very good, quaffable.

Domaine Latour-Giraud Meusault Genevrieres, 1er Cru, 2002. I picked this wine up through my grey market connection in London when the dollar was stronger and paid about $40 a bottle all in, which turned out to be a fine deal. This wine claims the ever present 13.5% alcohol, though I think it's accurate if not a bit high. I wanted to love this wine as much as some of the critics do, but it falls just a bit short of being a great great white for me. Anyway, here are the notes: straw gold in the glass, flowers and lemon-lime nose, zesty, green apples and honeydew mid-palate, great balance and mouth feel, well textured with only an OK finish with more citrus tones.

Rating: Very good/excellent.

Cheers, Barrld

Drive By Reviews

As previously noted I drink wine all the time, every day, any chance I get. My only other choice of alcohol is beer while watching sports in a bar, something that I will do this coming Thursday as UCLA plays its first NCAA Championship Tournament game at 4:30 and I must watch the Bruins, probably at Barney's in Santa Monica. Go Bruins!

Anyway, I have stray partial notes from five or six wines consumed over the last month or so and, instead of featuring only one wine around a theme of the moment, I thought to mix things up and give snap shots of a couple of pleasant tastings. Here you go with two of them:

Kaena Wines 2003 Grenache Camp 4 Vineyards, Santa Ynez Valley. This Rhone varietal clocks in at 14.9% alcohol (I wish they were more precise!) and a minor claim to fame is the fact that the winemaker lived in Hawaii, which accounts for the Hawaiian name and its label's floral design. Couple of points here; living in Hawaii teaches you nothing about winemaking, period. Kaena Point is actually a very spiritual place in the hierarchy of ancient Hawaiian beliefs, serving as a sort of gateway to the spirit world and such. "Ka'ena" means to boast or glorify. I guess I don't see the connection to wine.

Anyway, Laube applauded a recent Kaena release so I suspect that the winery has some traction. I bought this particular choice through the Santa Barbara Futures program a few years ago for around $24 a bottle. I've taken a bottle to one of our neighborhood dinners and the guzzlers gave it a thumbs up so it passed that test at least. Only sparse notes, probably due to someone shouting "DADDY!" mid sip. Lots of dark red fruit, like raspberries, a bit tart and gamy, missing the loam and leather from a better Rhone but quite drinkable, perhaps at a BBQ. "Truly handcrafted wines" on the back label is irritating; did he grow the grapes in the cupped palms of his hands?

Rating: very good, so-called Hawaiian link and label hype aside.

Sometimes I buy wines for on a whim, stash them in a corner and don't come across them until months later, usually by accident. I like Amarone well enought though I don't have a very good food match for it. I enjoy the wines from Masi, at least the ones I can afford. I just have no idea when or why I bought more than one bottle of the Masi Costasera Amarone Classico 2001, and I'm not sure how much I paid of course though I suspect it was low $40s. What do you do with Amarone, esp. a young one? Drink a glass here and there I guess; this is more a sipper than a gulper, esp. at 15% alcohol which I suspect is a plug and that we're talking 16%+ here, given the heat it throws off. Nose of raisins and blackberries, dense and chewy mid-palate, bitter chocolate finish with a bit of a hot, rustic edge.

Rating: Good.

Cheers, Barrld

Quick Note

Check out my Pinot and Alsatian blogs from previous dates, long story.

Cheers, Barrld