A Really Great Rose

Another ghetto camera phone photo

I wasn’t planning on posting an entry about this wine, but after drinking it, I just have to.  If you are searching for a great, and fairly inexpensive, rose, the 09 Chateau St Martin de la Garrigue Tradition is one you should consider.  This wine comes from the Languedoc region in France, which produces not only great rose, but also reds and whites.  I think I paid $13 dollars for the bottle.  As a side note, this wine is imported by Kermit Lynch, which usually means you are getting some high quality juice.  The same can be said for the Jorge Ordonez wines from Spain.

This wine has just about everything you look for in a Rose.  Well, actually everything that I look for.  It is dry, lightly fruity (red fruits), great acidity, has minerality, and a pleasant touch of herbs.  Even though the alcohol is relatively high (14%) it is balanced, and doesn’t step out of line.  I apologize for not parsing this wine too much, but it is a wine you should consider!  89 pts!

-Matt

“A Young Man’s Clamoring For Wine.” By Matt

Ghetto camera phone photo.

“Hey, Matt, how about we pick up a bottle of wine Wednesday?”  Spoke Kevin, late Monday afternoon.  Naturally, I responded with a resounding yes.  Especially after he offered to buy.  Like the ol’ adage goes, there is nothing better than free anything, especially wine.  A quick jaunt in the old Nissan, delivered us at the doorstep of The Corkscrew.  After browsing around, and having had success before in South America, Kevin decided upon the 2007 Domaine Monte De Luz Tannat, from Uruguay.  This wine was $9.99 I believe.

I have hardly any experience with the Tannat grape, so I entered this with optimism.  One thing intriguing about this bottle, is that even though it comes from Uruguay, the back label was printed in French.  As far as I can tell, Baron Francois is the importer of this wine, yet I still don’t understand why a Uruguayan wine in the US has a French label.

Confusion aside, the wine is a dark dark purple, aka, a teeth stainer.  This wine was probably opened at least an hour before I ever smelled or tasted it, so it wasn’t a literal pop and pour.   Which is too bad.  Had it been an immediate pop and pour I could have dismissed the hot hot heat.  But, since it wasn’t, a flag was raised.  To be fair, this wine was probably served at 75 degrees(ish) but this is the worst alcohol burn I have smelled in quite a long time.  Even 2 hours later it is present .  And it is only 12.5% alcohol!   Beyond, distantly beyond, plum, black licorice, a hint of vanilla are picked up in the nose, and also some minerality.  The nose is not that complex, and suffers from the alcohol.

Tasting this wine is very different than I was expecting.  It is extremely tart.  Probably the most sour red I have ever had.  I mean this is tart.   Mouth feel is medium bodied, with decent tannins.  Initial attack is the sourness.  Think under ripe raspberries.  Transition is not bad, just not a lot there.  Finish is short.  This wine just isn’t bringing it.  I was really hoping to like this wine, but I just did not.  I think my roommate echoes these sentiments.  All these factors add up to a 78 pt. rating.  Maybe on a different night this wine would be singing something else, but not tonight.  I would probably only recommend this to someone who was a Madiran/Tannat fan.

-Matt

A Nice Bottle of Malbec to End the Week.

Knowing that I would be eating steak on Friday, with a couple of friends over, I naturally sought out a bottle of red to complement the cow.  However, with beer being my friends’ drink of choice, my 2007 Gouguenheim Malbec, from the Mendoza region in Argentina remained.  That is until I finished up some physics, and decided to relax with some wine, with my roommate.  I popped open this bottle and poured it about 30 minutes later.  Immediately the alcohol was very pronounced.  I mean, I was thinking grape flavored vodka, not wine.  After vigorously swirling, enough of the alcohol blew off, to reveal a nice nose of plums and  vanilla.  The plum is a very sugary smelling, not jammy, but almost plum syrup smelling.  I have no idea if this exists, but if it does, I imagine this wine would smell like it.  A little tobacco adds a nice touch of depth to this wine.  The wine has an appealing plum color to it as well.  This does not appear to be a hugely extracted wine.

In the mouth, it comes across as more tart than I was anticipating, as the nose almost makes it seem sweet.   The plum follows through in the mouth as well, but it seems to be picking up a raspberry component as well.  Pepper and leather also are showing nicely in the mouth, and they seem to stick around for a while.  This wine has good, but not great, tannnins, and a medium body mouthfeel.  Overall, this is a pretty good sipping wine.  The alcoholic heat is a bit unpleasant, but I suspect this would be less of an issue if the bottle were open longer.  Regardless, it is a bit disconcerting as the wine is only 13.5%, hardly what I would call an alcoholic beast.

I guess in retrospect, I probably should have had this with the steak, as it seems to be more food oriented than some of the other wines I have had recently.  With that said, this is a well made, solid wine, and I would definitely buy this again.  And like the bottle of Las Colinas from a few days back, this wine also has a very nice, subdued, but attractive packaging.  Australia should take note!   84 pts, and I think for $13, not a terrible play.  However, off the top of my head, the 2006 Calcu Red Wine beats this, and is $2 less.

-Matt

The First and Maybe Last Pinot Noir Post.

I still don’t get it… okay, I get it…  I just don’t understand it or really enjoy it. Of course, I’m talking about Pinot Noir and all the buzz that it has gotten since the movie Sideways.  I really don’t want to write this blog entry because I feel like I’m beating a dead horse but I guess any wine blog needs a post on Pinot noir and having visited the city of Beaune I’m practically obligated to make a post on pinot.

Having spent 2 days in Burgundy, for the most part in Beaune, and having tasted over 60 wines (mainly reds i.e. pinots but there were a few whites) I feel as though I can speak with some experience on the mythical and worshiped pinot grape.  Even after all that wine, I still don’t understand why people love pinot noir so much.  I will say that I love Pommards and the 1 grand-cru Gevrey Chambertin (a 1999 Charmes-Chambertin) I got to taste was incredible but on a whole the rest of the pinots were over priced and lacking in serious quality.

Now, I understand how Burgundy works with small production and a much stronger focus on terroir than other regions which invariably drives prices up due to less availability but what I don’t understand is why people have an obsession over these wines and how these wines can be sold at the prices they ask.  In a wine world that is expanding everyday, there are so many better options than some of the pinots coming out of burgundy.  It was a pleasure to taste all these wines from an educative standpoint but from a pleasure and consummer point of view… I just don’t get it.  Maybe I have to strong of a new world palate and maybe several of the Burgundian wineries need to practice better wine making techniques so that the barnyard smells and tastes are kept in the barnyard and not in my glass.  I hope I can enjoy Burgundies wines someday unfortunately that time is not now, but I still have time.

~ciao, Joe

In keeping with the Spanish theme…

I am also drinking a bottle of Spanish wine!  Maybe Joe and I are subconsciously drinking Spanish wines to commemorate the huge US victory over the Spaniards in soccer, not long ago.  Or, maybe not.  In reality, this is the only bottle I had sitting around, that I am ready to drink.  But I digress; in front of me sits a bottle of the 2008 Las Colinas Del Ebro Garnacha Blanca.  I’ve had this bottle sitting around for a month or two, after the LWS had it as the wine of the month, and offered it for the very reasonable price of $8.69.  As a side note, this has a very crisp, clean, and attractive packaging.

This wine has a very strong nose, although it is dominated by two flavors:  green apple and lime.  These are big, strong notes in this wine.  Definitely very pleasing.  After opening up for a little bit, and subsequently warming up, as I had this in the fridge for a bit, some mint becomes apparent.   From the nose, I am getting the impression that this is going to be a “minerally” wine.  We’ll see.

Definite green apple in the mouth.  No doubt about it.  The mouthfeel isn’t watery like a NZ Sauvignon Blanc, but it also doesn’t feel like a glob in your mouth like a CA Chard.  It is somewhere in the middle.  And quite pleasing really.  It isn’t too heavy, nor is it light.  Really a great summer wine mouthfeel.  There is a tad of minerality present, and then loads of acid.  This wine has good acidity.  You can feel the saliva building before you even swallow the wine, and that is what I like to feel.  Overall in the mouth, great green apple, a dab of minerality, and then a boat load of acid.  The alcohol, is never really an issue here, which is good, because a few hours earlier, I tasted a couple of whites, where the fruit could not mask the alcohol.  The 13% alcohol is nicely integrated, and never steps out of line.

This is a very solid play at sub-$9.  For those looking for a great summer wine, that isn’t going to break the bank, and is going to offer something different, this wine really brings it.  Like Joe has been saying, Spain is really delivering.

-Matt

The Spanish Strike Again !

The fact that Spanish wine made such a quick return to our blog is no surprise to me… what is surprising is that I am blogging about a Rosé wine!  Yes you heard me correctly a Spanish Rosé – Bodegas Y Vinedos Silvera, Preto 2007 from the Castilla y Leon.  This wine was just pretty, I mean it was like that girl that has natural beauty that nobody can deny.  The nose was perfumed with great floral notes and bright ripe red fruit like strawberries and light cherries.  The nose almost reminded me of all those cheap perfumes that girls wear during the high school summertime when your parents still had to drive you to a “party” and again that lead to this wines beauty.  As much as, I loved the nose in the mouth is where this wine surprised.  On the attack were the nice red fruits that were found on the nose.  There was great acidity as well and a heavy mouthfeal that was, at the same time, light and crisp thanks to the acidity. This rosé even succeded in packing in some floral flavors like rose petals and violette which transitions seemlessly into the a cool inviting finish. I mean this finish was one of those finishes that really make you want to savor it and then go back for more.

If you can find this one wine you must buy it.  The going price of this wine in Paris is €10.40, not cheap for a rosé but worth it.   The difficulty in finding this wine is that this is a brand new project born in 2007, by three partners: Benito Otero, José Luis González Pérez and Gregory Nava. The company has 13 hectares of old vines and a winery in Otero. The vineyards have an elevation of about 1000m above sea level with stony ground and receive very little rain, which allows for good aromatic potential of the prieto picudo grape which makes up this wine.

…I love sparkling wines in almost any form but for June night going out with my Boston College friends, this rosé really was the perfect aperitif for a heavy warm summer night in Paris before the clubs.  So thanks to Lauran Nelson who bought and brought this wine.

The Best Bubbly is still Beer

2Cepages doing a post on beer? Could this be true… for the wino’s sadly it is true but for lovers of drinking culture and for those who sometimes need a break from grape juice it is true.  Think about it is there anything more refreshing than an ice-cold beer on a hot day?  Or how about a heavy ale or stout on a cold wintery day?  I know you could argue that there are other things to drink but we need to give beer our respect and especially respect for being able to find a spot on the table in almost every country I’ve had the priviledge to visit.  From France to Italy to Spain to Greece to Croatia one thing is a constant, beer.  There are other constants but come on if you see a sign for beer in the street you know a good time can be had.

Its amazing to me that beer can be so distinct and so different from one country to the next.  When I think about the size of the US and the beer market being dominated by the liks of Bud, Miller and Coors I can only hope that micro-brews help to make the market more fragmented and diverse so that we can enjoy a beer renaissance.  Not only that but I’m convinced that to truly enjoy wine and all it has to offer you have to be a heavy beer drinker to keep your wine palette fresh and excited to taste whatever new juice comes your way.  So maybe tonight instead of popping a bottle of read or white, leave the formalities behind and crack open an ice cold beer.

Spanish Invasion

So it’s been a while hasn’t it.  I hope Teasdale has been keeping you company without being too much of a bore but have no worries posts will be flowing from my keyboard like wine flows from white Franzia boxes at frat parties. Lets start with the long awaited, a foreign wine tasting in Paris !  Okay, yes this was a one country foreign wine tasting and that country was Spain which is still a european country but nevertheless the French put their ego aside and embraced the wines of another country for once. This Spanish wine tasting was the tasting that justified my joining of  Club Lavinia, the wine club of the luxury wine shop Lavinia in the 1st arrondissement of Paris.

Here is a quick run down of some of the more memorable wines we got to taste.

• Julian Chivite, 125 Colleccion Reserva 2004 (Aragon, Navarra)
• Abadia Retuerta, Seleccion Especial 2006 (Castille y Leon)
• Perez Pascuas, Vina Pedrosa Crianza 2006 (Ribera del Duero)
• Familia Mariano Garcia Mauro, San Roman 2005 (Toro)

I don’t have the most experience with Spanish wines but this tasting definitely cemented Spanish wine as a “must have” for future wine purchases.  I still can’t figure out why I never jumped on the Spanish wine bandwagon before.  The majority of these wines were so cheap compared to wines of Napa, Bordeaux, Burgundy etc.. and yet their quality was on level with all of the great wines of the world.  How could I as a poor college kid on a fixed budget not have become  more knowledgeable about Spanish wine!  Even the lower priced wines that we tasted still had redeeming qualities that cheap french wine so rarely achieve.

I left this tasting wondering, how has Spainish wine achieved this quality and keep their prices so competitive  compared to other wine regions? How have they managed to produce cheap wines while keeping quality levels elevated, again compared to other regions?  And finally why haven’t I drunk more Spanish wine? I’m sure the answers or parts of the answers are wrapped up in the political/social/cultural/economic history and will definitely be a topic of exploration. I’m hestitant to give a long winded blog entry of my thoughts on how Spain and specific spanish wine making regions have managed to make such a compelling bid to be included among the best wine regions in the world so I will just leave you with my thoughts about what I’ve tasted. On the attack these wines were reminiscent of wines from Napa Australia and Argentina with their delightful purity and power of aromas, fruits and flavors.  Then in the mouth the viscosity and texture melanged with the evident terroir made you think you were drinking warm vintage french and italian wines.  Spain makes the strong case to be the perfect balance of old world and new world and that fact will, in my opinion, make spainish wine an even more sought after commodity.

Ciao Joe

A cold night here in Champaign

Is really a great thing, because it allows me to drink some good ol’ vin rouge.  Most of the time, it is just too hot for me to really enjoy red wine, so I stick to the whites.  However, this brief respite has afforded me my chance to drink some red, and so I do!

Going on the recommendation of a couple of different people I pulled the trigger on the 2006 Altano, from the Duoro region of Portugal.  This is a 70% Tinta Roriz and 30% Touriga Franca blend.  For those not familiar with the Tinta Roriz grape, it is more famously known as Tempranillo, in Spain.  Both of these varietals are traditional grapes in Port wine.

I let this bottle open up over the past hour plus.  On the nose, the overwhelming smell is red fruit.  Predominant strawberries and cranberries are present, along with just a hint of some pencil shavings and an inkling of some vanilla.  For some reason, I want to call this a “clean” nose.  I am not extremely sure what I even mean by this, but I feel compelled to write it.  And no, it isn’t the alcohol speaking, because I haven’t even had a glass yet.  As far as color is concerned, it is a dark purple color, although this wouldn’t be confused with a big Cali cab.

Down the hatch, sourness.  Good sourness though.  Ocean Spray cranberries are just popping in this wine.  Really bright fruit.  Also raspberries.  Intriguing acidity in this wine as well.  The fruit is really great in this wine.  It is balanced with medium tannins, and slight butteriness to the finish.  For $10, an absolute steal.  I think this is an 86-87 point wine.  I feel like with the acidity, it would be even better with food, but this also has the chops to drink alone.   With 50,000 cases made, this wine is pretty easy to find.

After several hours, like 3, a certain leather component develops, making the taste even more pleasing.

-Matt

A little Rhone with some hoops

As I write this blog entry, the Denver and LA Lakers game just got underway.  So far this has been a pretty good series.  Not as good as the Orlando-Cleveland series, but pretty damn good.  With that said, I am pulling for a Denver-Orlando series, as I no longer want to see LeBron matchup against Kobe after those awful Nike puppet commercials.  But this is the NBA, so I imagine Kobe and LeBron will get there.

Okay, enough about basketball, and into the wine.  I grabbed the Caves des Papes Cotes du Rhone 2006 last weekend from Corkscrew, for $13.99 I think.  Somewhere in the $15+/- 1 range.  If you can’t tell, I make most of wine purchases here, as I like the store and the staff.  I unfortunately had to stick this bottle in the fridge as I had some fears about the heat cooking the bottle the past few days, so it is a tad cold.  The wine sat out, after opening, for about an hour.  The wine is pretty dark, with an attractive bright purple halo around the outside.

Immediately you are going to notice the ample red fruit on this wine.  Ripe, juicy strawberries and raspberries are out in force in this wine.  There is some leather and a really faint hint of some “floralness.”  The nose really isn’t bringing a ton to the table.

The taste on this is not as powerful as I would have imagined from the color.  The nice red fruits that you would expect from the nose are carrying through to the palate.  Raspberries are the most pronounced of the flavors.  The mid palate transition is pretty quick, but I get some leather/earthy notes before the peppery finish of this wine.  Tannins are present, but they are more of the bitter variety, and are a little harsh.  There is a bit of imbalance with the transition.   This is a so-so offering, and for 15ish dollars, you can certainly find better.  All things considered, I had higher expectations for this wine, but it did have some good things, peppery/spicy finish to it, and overall it comes in at 82 points.

-Matt