I thought I would pass on some wine related websites that I check out regularly.
www.cellartracker.com
- If you're looking to check out a certain wine but don't have access to scores from pay sites like winespectator.com this is a great place to start. It's like a wikipedia for wine where users log in, write tasting notes and give ratings for whatever they've drank lately. Fun to keep an online journal for yourself, too! And most importantly, free...but feel free to donate
http://wine.woot.com
- This website features selections from one winery for purchase on a weekly basis, usually at great prices. This week's feature is a trio of wines from local Amity Vineyards. Fun to check out now and then. The forum can be worth stopping by as sometimes the winemakers will pop in and answer questions. Just ignore the inevitable "this is a forum on the internet and I must spam and post every 10 mins" chat. It happens.
http://tv.winelibrary.com
- If you haven't experiences Gary Vaynerchuk, get ready. If you have experienced Veynerchuk, we either love him or get your fill real quick. This guy has all the energy of that really hyper kid that sat next to you in Mr. Websters algebra class back in 10th grade. He is all about "knocking down the wine walls" and just talking about wine. He's definitely a character and can be fun to watch when he is tasting a lot of wines.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Homework/Tasting Notes; part 1
Clos du Val Cabernet Sauvignon Napa 2004
- Initially pretty shy and quiet on the nose, so needs some time to breathe before you get much out of it. Once it opens up I'm getting some cherries/currants along with some oak. A hint of spice kinda sneaks through, but there's not much to it. Alcohol clocks in at 13.5%, making it pretty tame by modern Napa cab standards. The finish doesn't hang around too long. For the price ~$30 on sale I wanted a bit more. ~87 points. Got the '04 Merlot next, so we'll see how that goes.
- Initially pretty shy and quiet on the nose, so needs some time to breathe before you get much out of it. Once it opens up I'm getting some cherries/currants along with some oak. A hint of spice kinda sneaks through, but there's not much to it. Alcohol clocks in at 13.5%, making it pretty tame by modern Napa cab standards. The finish doesn't hang around too long. For the price ~$30 on sale I wanted a bit more. ~87 points. Got the '04 Merlot next, so we'll see how that goes.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
The great Merlot tasting of '08
Today as a training exercise at our wine steward meeting we ending the day with a blind merlot tasting. Although my palate and I were fading quickly, here's what the 18 wine (three flights of 6 each by region). All we knew going into the flights were the fact that they were Merlots. Tasted wines listed in bold.
Flight 1) Australia
- since our import section of austrailian merlots is pretty small, none of these wines were more than $9 retail. Believe it or not Yellow Tail Merlot was my favorite, although the competition was Alice White, Lindemans, Jacob's Creek, Rosemount and Penfold's. It seemed to be the most popular on the whole too. Rosemount was second followed by Penfold's for me. I must say I was expecting the Yellow Tail to be a more expensive wine.
Flight 2) California
- here I had a split on favorite of the group. I was more or less tied for Toasted Head and Robert Mondavi Napa. These are around $13 and $22, respectively. Taking another look at my tasting notes at home I would have to give the edge to Mondavi as I noted the Toasted Head finish was fairly short, although had some interesting things going on in the nose. Others tasted were Fetzer, Beringer Napa (or was it Knight's Valley?) and some other wine that I didn't catch. The surprise was the Beringer Merlot, which was my least favorite, which is rough at $20+. It was soft, with light berries but fell dead in my mouth. No finish and hardly a mid-palate for me. Fetzer, around $6, was real easy drinking, so a good deal if you're in to that category.
Flight 3) Washington
- Merlot is Washington's grape. Another split for me on this flight with Chateau Ste. Michelle and Northstar, $12 and $40 respectively. The Ste. Michelle gave some nice cherry flavors, good fruit depth and nice tannins while Northstar you could tell had some more oak on it, was showing quite well and had the best aftertaste of them all. We also did Covey Run, Silvan Ridge, Columbia Crest Grand Estates and Blue Moon. Pass on the Blue Moon big time.
All in all it was a fun exercise and honestly kind of made me feel a bit uneasy. What if I liked the cheapest wine? What if I can't differentiate enough between them? The only big surprise was Beringer Napa Merlot price/quality-wise. It's a great way to build your palate and learn to trust yourself to make your own decisions about what you are drinking.
We hit up a decent amount of wines at the meeting and perhaps I'll stop by in the next few days and let you know some of the highlights and wines that you can look for on the shelves. I also got a few bottles of homework to take care of over the next couple of weeks so I'll fill y'all in on that too. Off the top of my head we are looking forward to:
-Renwood old vine zin 2005
-Clos du Val Cab
-Clos du Val Merlot
-some white bordeaux
-Yellow Tail Sparkling (already drank, not bad, will please the YT crowd. a bit sweet)
-Columbia Crest Horse Heaven Hills Merlot (had at tasting, too, yummy merlot...more to follow)
Cheers!
Flight 1) Australia
- since our import section of austrailian merlots is pretty small, none of these wines were more than $9 retail. Believe it or not Yellow Tail Merlot was my favorite, although the competition was Alice White, Lindemans, Jacob's Creek, Rosemount and Penfold's. It seemed to be the most popular on the whole too. Rosemount was second followed by Penfold's for me. I must say I was expecting the Yellow Tail to be a more expensive wine.
Flight 2) California
- here I had a split on favorite of the group. I was more or less tied for Toasted Head and Robert Mondavi Napa. These are around $13 and $22, respectively. Taking another look at my tasting notes at home I would have to give the edge to Mondavi as I noted the Toasted Head finish was fairly short, although had some interesting things going on in the nose. Others tasted were Fetzer, Beringer Napa (or was it Knight's Valley?) and some other wine that I didn't catch. The surprise was the Beringer Merlot, which was my least favorite, which is rough at $20+. It was soft, with light berries but fell dead in my mouth. No finish and hardly a mid-palate for me. Fetzer, around $6, was real easy drinking, so a good deal if you're in to that category.
Flight 3) Washington
- Merlot is Washington's grape. Another split for me on this flight with Chateau Ste. Michelle and Northstar, $12 and $40 respectively. The Ste. Michelle gave some nice cherry flavors, good fruit depth and nice tannins while Northstar you could tell had some more oak on it, was showing quite well and had the best aftertaste of them all. We also did Covey Run, Silvan Ridge, Columbia Crest Grand Estates and Blue Moon. Pass on the Blue Moon big time.
All in all it was a fun exercise and honestly kind of made me feel a bit uneasy. What if I liked the cheapest wine? What if I can't differentiate enough between them? The only big surprise was Beringer Napa Merlot price/quality-wise. It's a great way to build your palate and learn to trust yourself to make your own decisions about what you are drinking.
We hit up a decent amount of wines at the meeting and perhaps I'll stop by in the next few days and let you know some of the highlights and wines that you can look for on the shelves. I also got a few bottles of homework to take care of over the next couple of weeks so I'll fill y'all in on that too. Off the top of my head we are looking forward to:
-Renwood old vine zin 2005
-Clos du Val Cab
-Clos du Val Merlot
-some white bordeaux
-Yellow Tail Sparkling (already drank, not bad, will please the YT crowd. a bit sweet)
-Columbia Crest Horse Heaven Hills Merlot (had at tasting, too, yummy merlot...more to follow)
Cheers!
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Tonight's dinner and wine
Tonight I popped open a bottle I had been holding on to for awhile. The girls are out of town and my brother is visiting from college. It also just so happened that we had three ribeye steaks just waiting to be grilled up. I had been battling a bit of a cold/general sinus stuffiness and had decided to wait until the ol' sniffer cleared up. The timing was perfect. The stars had aligned. It was the moment of Clos Figueres Font de la Figuera 2005 Priorat.
Let's start with the color. A dark, inky purple fills the glass.
First sniff. Straight out of the glass this wine means business. It's already rich and full of character. I'm picking up candied cherries and plums, with a hint of licorice as you pull out of the glass. (I read a review that mentioned the aroma of flowers, which I will also agree to). It's a wine that has the richness to draw you back to the glass a couple of times as you try to figure out exactly what is going on.
In the mouth. It follows up on the flavors you get on the nose, those candied cherries/plums. It used to be that when I heard plums used to describe wines I never thought highly of it. My mind has been changed. There is also a an element of sweetness to the wine that will make it intriguing to newcomers who want an impressive wine as well as those who have been drinking for awhile. Let's face it, a good wine is a good wine.
The ribeyes were grilled and served up with grilled onions and peppers. The coup e'tat was chimichurri sauce, which is basically a pesto like sauce made with garlic, parsley, olive oil and crushed red pepper flake. This was a happy meal.
Overall, I give the wine 90 points. Solid wine from the Priorat region in Spain. I picked this out from a tasting of Spanish/Portugese tasting. I'm excited to dive into more wines from the region. Should retail around $32.
Let's start with the color. A dark, inky purple fills the glass.
First sniff. Straight out of the glass this wine means business. It's already rich and full of character. I'm picking up candied cherries and plums, with a hint of licorice as you pull out of the glass. (I read a review that mentioned the aroma of flowers, which I will also agree to). It's a wine that has the richness to draw you back to the glass a couple of times as you try to figure out exactly what is going on.
In the mouth. It follows up on the flavors you get on the nose, those candied cherries/plums. It used to be that when I heard plums used to describe wines I never thought highly of it. My mind has been changed. There is also a an element of sweetness to the wine that will make it intriguing to newcomers who want an impressive wine as well as those who have been drinking for awhile. Let's face it, a good wine is a good wine.
The ribeyes were grilled and served up with grilled onions and peppers. The coup e'tat was chimichurri sauce, which is basically a pesto like sauce made with garlic, parsley, olive oil and crushed red pepper flake. This was a happy meal.
Overall, I give the wine 90 points. Solid wine from the Priorat region in Spain. I picked this out from a tasting of Spanish/Portugese tasting. I'm excited to dive into more wines from the region. Should retail around $32.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
A recent article
The other week there was an article in either the Times or the Journal about this chap. This was no ordinary wine chap but someone who has achieved some of the highest recognized wine titles/degrees/etc in the world. And who happens to be a recovering alcoholic. The article revolved around him challenging traditional food/wine pairing, basically saying by playing with certain flavors in the dish (salt, mainly) you can make certain dishes play well with wine, therefore eliminating nasty aftertastes or bitterness from the pairing.
I'm certainly no wine god and don't have any wine related diplomas under my belt but I thought all this 'playing with the recipe' to make it more wine friendly was defeating the purpose. The dish, without being changed or extra-salted or having whatever done to it, stands alone. It is delicious in it's own right. The chosen wine, tasted and drank on its own, is also delicious in it's own right. The tricky part is getting the right combo where they both elevate each other to new deliciousness. I suppose my argument is that certain dishes have been prepared certain ways for a reason. They are supposed to taste just the way they taste, whether or not that makes it easy or hard to find a wine that will play along. It's finding the correct wine (be it varietal, region, style within varietal) to elevate the dish that makes it difficult.
I'm certainly no wine god and don't have any wine related diplomas under my belt but I thought all this 'playing with the recipe' to make it more wine friendly was defeating the purpose. The dish, without being changed or extra-salted or having whatever done to it, stands alone. It is delicious in it's own right. The chosen wine, tasted and drank on its own, is also delicious in it's own right. The tricky part is getting the right combo where they both elevate each other to new deliciousness. I suppose my argument is that certain dishes have been prepared certain ways for a reason. They are supposed to taste just the way they taste, whether or not that makes it easy or hard to find a wine that will play along. It's finding the correct wine (be it varietal, region, style within varietal) to elevate the dish that makes it difficult.
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