A Word on Vintage (or Why Vintage and Al Roker Are Basically Synonymous)

So maybe you'll think I'm a nut, but I spend a lot of time thinking about Al Roker (for those of you who don't watch TV or aren't in the US, he's a weatherman on a major morning TV show here). Not in some untoward, weird, creepy way, but in terms of the dude's profession. Why? Because I think about, talk about, and write about vintage all the time and in case you didn't know, vintage is just the weather in a particular year.

I'm sure that wine snobs would gasp at the thought that their ultimate, snot-ace-in-the-hole -- trying to trip people up by casually throwing out vintage and discussing what a great year such and such was for Bordeaux or Burgundy -- can be boiled down to a jolly, formerly portly, bespectacled man who talks about clouds, sun, and rain all day long, but tough luck on them. I'm here to tell ya, that's all it is.

After all, wine is agriculture. There are specific things that determine quality -- some mainly fixed, some variable.

On the fixed side, in my mind, first and foremost is terroir. It's that indescribable French word that encompasses everything that's inherent in a vineyard. Soil, location, climate, sun exposure, slope of the land, proximity to water, and that special un-namable thing that makes the vineyard (if you want to know more about terroir, please listen to the Wine For Normal People podcast on it)

Also sort of fixed is the winemaking style. The winemaker can determine what the end product tastes like by choosing certain techniques to make the wine fuller and creamier (like malolactic fermentation and sur lie aging, where the wine sits on the dead yeast cells after fermentation which enriches the flavor), or give it new flavors by aging it in certain types of oak (new oak produces major flavor, older oak less so). The proportion of grapes used in a blend can also make a big difference.

Those factors are what they are. Because of that, I'd argue that the wine could potentially taste the same year after year if not for the x-factor. And that's where big Al comes into play.

Let me explain.

Some of you may live in a place where the weather is fairly consistent. It's a rare year where strange things happen and storms and unlikely weather events get meteorologists geeked up for their crowning moment of glory where they get hours of air time talking about lightening, wind, and rain. For example, I'd argue that much of California has this kind of climate.

Others of you live in places where weather dictates your life. I remember when I lived in Boston, snow and rain (for 9 months of the year) meant that some years we barely went outside for months at a time and in other years we were overjoyed that, even though it was 14 below with the windchill, we could brave the streets without snowshoes. The weather people got plenty of air time and they were minor celebrities (no coincidence that all the major US networks have weather people that originated in New York stations -- they have a ton of experience on-air).

So what does this have to grapes and vintage? EVERYTHING. Because in places that are located in active weather zones, each year is a wild card. You never know if you'll have horrible wind while the grapes are being formed that could rip the clusters off the vine and reduce your harvest, or if you'll have torrential rains that will bruise the grapes as they are ripening, or a massive drought that could mean your grapes get burned by the sun.

On a continent that is very far north and surrounded by seas to the north, south, and west, and mountains that form their own weather systems, you're bound to have tumultuous weather annually. And that means that sometimes you'll hit the jackpot and your crop will be amazing, but sometimes it will just suck and only the best winemakers will be able to make lemonade from those unsightly lemons. If you've ever vacationed here, you know that often whatever you packed is always the wrong thing for precisely these reasons: Welcome to Europe.

Elsewhere in the winemaking world, we have weather but it's just not quite as volatile. We've addressed California, but we can hit a few more now. Argentina's wine regions, located very high in the mountains, are dry and escape much of the rain and bad weather it would experience if closer to the coast. Australia is plagued by drought, so they don't have to worry much about rain (even with the recent rains, the wine regions were less affected). A lot is controlled by man through irrigation systems. New Zealand, although it has some funky weather, has placed its wine regions in areas that are protected from nasty sea storms that strike up and hit coastal regions. Chile and South Africa have a bit more variation but are still pretty consistent with weather....certainly more so than Europe.

But even with more consistency, Al Roker still has a role to play everywhere in the wine world. The fact remains that no 2 years are the same for agriculture, including for grapes. You may love a wine one year, only to find that it is horrible the next. Could be that they changed the blend or degraded the quality (a lot of big wineries do this 2 to 3 years after launch on their lower range products, BTW), but for established brands it's usually all about vintage.

You've got to pay attention to that number on the bottle and do a little poking around (I like Decanter's vintage charts)...especially if that wine is European.

I think I've effectively flogged the poor dead vintage horse, so now I'll move on to reviewing the latest release/newest vintage from a California winery that sent me their product last year as well -- Concannon. Let's see if my theory holds that vintage matters less in California...

I'm going to compare wines I reviewed last year with this year's version (which, in full disclosure, where sent to me by the Winery...but as you'll see that makes no difference in my review). Here's a link to the prior post for more info on these wines and my take on them last year.

Wine 1: Concannon Conservancy Chardonnay
Where It's From: Livermore Valley
The Grapes: 100% Chardonnay
Vintage: 2009
Alcohol: 13.5%
Price: $15.00

Color: A rich straw color...like the shimmer off a gold ring. Let's face it; oak has been here in a big way. Chardonnay doesn't get this dark without lots of time hanging out and ripening on a vine and then aging in some kind of oak to darken it up.

Nose: In contrast to last year, this nose was a lot closer to the taste of the wine. It was a tad peachy but the overall sensation was of limeade or lemonade -- a sweetened version of citrus. There was a touch of mineral/wet rock too and a little whiff of pretty jasmine tea or jasmine flowers. I liked it...but was also curious as to why it didn't smell like oak when clearly, from the color, it had been stored in some sort of oak.

Taste: Ah, and here it is...oak, vanilla, and caramel galore. There was a slight limeade flavor but oak ruled the day, once again. Pretty decent acid made my mouth water, but there really wasn't much to this wine except oak and lime.

Drink or down the sink?: Just like last year, I don't love it, but it's not a down the sink. It's just ok. It's funny because I feel like this is less typical of Livermore Chardonnay, which tends to be oaky and heavy like the 2008 was. 2009 was supposedly a better vintage than '08, which was a small vintage because there was a spring frost and then not a ton of rain (see how important Al Roker is?) so maybe the winemaker decided to rely less on oak (by aging it for a shorter time or using a smaller proportion of new oak, which tends to lend the wine bigger flavor than used oak) and let the fruit do it's thing more. Ironically, even with warmer, more consistent weather in '09, the wine seems less fruity and over-ripe than the '08. All around, I like it better, but if you like a big oaky style, this is more moderate.


Wine 2: Concannon Conservancy Petite Sirah
I talk about Petite Sirah in last year's post, so check it out for details.

Where It's From: Livermore Valley
The Grapes: 100% Petite Sirah
Vintage: 2007
Alcohol: 13.5%
Price: $15.00

Color: True to Petite Sirah, this wine is black as night. It looks viscous and heavy -- like black cherry jello before it sets. It's so dark that if you swirl it around the glass the legs (which are just alcohol dripping down the glass after the water has dripped down -- the former is heavier so it takes a longer time to get back into the glass) are stained purple. I'd expect brawn from this wine.

Smell: This year's version was like black licorice, black cherry, and black plums. It had a menthol or medicinal note too and big arse oak -- like cedar chips in the closet. The alcohol wafted out of the glass too. Compared to my impressions of the '08, this was a lot less interesting to smell. It was simplistic and not very exciting.

Taste: Black cherry juice or jello came to mind immediately, followed by grape flavored bubble gum and that kids medicine, Dimetapp, that they sell here in the US. It was a touch bitter too. I know the alcohol was 13.5% which is moderately high but not over the top, but this wine hurt to drink. I don't know if it was the acid combined with the alcohol, but it burned from the back of my throat down my esophagus (no I don't have weird issues and no this doesn't normally happen with wine for me, so it was unique to this one!). The tannins were soft but the wine just didn't work. Like last year -- it had no gusto.

Drink or down the sink?: Down the sink. I felt like the wine lacked balance between the fruit and the acid and alcohol. It had little personality and the character it did show didn't do it for me. I've had a few Petite Sirahs in my day, and there are better ones than this for the money.

If you compare this vintage with my notes on the last for the Concannon wines, I think there are two conclusions to draw:

• Wines are constantly changing, however depending on the winery and region, they do have a common thread from year to year -- that's due to terroir and to the winemaking style
  
• My conclusion about California's consistency holds true with the Concannon wines. I'll need to do the same thing with Europe on the blog, because, although I've never documented it here, I can tell you it can be a wild ride from year to year on the same brand and region. Bordeaux from 2005 and from 2006 are a far cry from each other when you're talking affordable wine
• Al Roker is our wild card...and we're happy to have him around to keep things interesting in wine!

I'd love to hear from you! Please send questions and post comments! Readmore »»

Concannon's Conservancy Tier Wines: Así Así

A few years back when I worked for a monstrously large winery, I refused to live in the factory town in which it was headquartered. Perhaps it was fact that two women from the town were sadly murdered in very public, national incidents, or maybe it was the alarming number of meth addicts, or possibly it was the tallow plant which coughed out the most vomitanous smell in the entire world, but any way you slice it, I wasn't doing it.

What was my other option? Living near the Livermore Valley -- a 55 minute commute and right in the neighborhood of wine country. So when Concannon Winery, one of the oldest wineries in this valley, recently sent me some samples of their new Conservancy Wines, I was happily nostalgic for times that MC Ice and I tasted wines locally and hit some of the 40 or so wineries in Livermore.

Livermore Valley, about 50 minutes east of San Fran, has produced wine since the late 1800s. It's inland, but it still gets coastal fog and cool breezes from the San Fran Bay so although it's hot during the day, the cooler nights allow the fruit to gather up a little acid and actually have something going on besides overripe apples and wood. The valley boasts the distinction of being home to the first California wine to win a French competition, taking the prize at the 1889 Paris Exposition (World Fair).

After effectively being closed down due to Prohibition, Livermore Valley sprang back and had as many vineyards as Napa in the 1960s, but I guess it lacked the moxy or the quality or both to get the street cred it needed to be a "hot" area. It's a relatively small region -- Wente, who I've reviewed before, makes 300,000 cases of wine and is the giant of the area (to put this into perspective, I managed a smaller brand for the monstrous winery and it sold around 300,000 cases per year). Concannon is the second largest, but with just 30,000 cases a year.

Concannon has been around since 1884 and survived prohibition by making wine for the church. Petite Sirah is what it's know for, having introduced the first varietally labeled one to the market in 1961. James Concannon is the fourth generation winemaker, and still works with his father to ensure consistency in the wine.

The wine was sent my way because it's part of a new Conservancy Tier. This means that the winery realized that suburban sprawl was taking over the Livermore Valley, so it set aside some land to protect it from home builders. The fruit for the wine is sourced 100% from Livermore Valley vineyards.

The web site boasts that the winery is sustainable and part of the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance, which, although I respect Concannon, I have to say is a bunch of hooey made up by big wine companies so they can get a marketing bounce for using the word "sustainable" but do very little for the environment (let's just say that the world's 2 biggest wineries are on the board of this organization and criteria like shutting off lights when you leave a room count towards your score, and I don't think there are consequences for dumping in the rivers or polluting streams). I'm not impressed, but I'm also kind of a green advocate, so take it as you will.

Regardless of this last comment, I do love the Concannon story and I like the winery, but I'm kind of lukewarm on the wines I received, as you'll see. Here's the skinny on both:

Wine 1: Concannon Conservancy Chardonnay
Where It's From: Livermore Valley
The Grapes: 100% Chardonnay
Vintage: 2008
Price: $15.00

Color: California Chardonnay rarely strays from form on the color -- it's golden yellow and shiny and bright. Why? Because the oak tannins darken up the color of the juice from straw-colored to that rich yellow. You just know you're going to be plucking a proverbial splinter or two from your gums from all the oak.

Smell: This wine was very typical of Cali Chardonnay -- bright red and green apple and ripe, juicy, dripping pear nectar oozed from the glass. A second sniff and we're in some Caribbean town, smelling a guava, papaya, and pineapple fruit salad. And then the two by four -- big oak, chemical and paint, mineral, and caramel smells abounded. Not unpleasant, but not surprising either. It's what I find kind of typical of a wine from this area.

Taste: Interestingly, the wine tasted a lot more like lemon and lime than the tropical fruit that it smelled of. It was pretty fresh-tasting and seemed like it had high acid (although the wine note shows that it's moderate acid, so I'm not sure why it was so clean). But there was literally an oak tree and stick of butter living together in this bottle, waiting to be uncorked. That said, the wine wasn't that heavy -- it's an interesting one for sure.

Food: Some sort of light meat in an herb sauce or heavy fish, or heavy vegetarian dish with a cream sauce, or potatoes or cheese is the way to go with this. Because the wine is pretty flavorful, I'd say your best pairing is complementary, not contrasting -- this would drown out a light acidic sauce in a heartbeat.

Drink or Down the Sink?: I don't usually prefer big, oaky wines, but this was ok. I liked the lemony, herby qualities of the wine and found they offset the overt creamy, oakiness. Would it be my first choice in Chardonnay? Probably not, but it's certainly at the top of the list when it comes to $15 California Chardonnay because it's not the typical profile.


Wine 2: Concannon Conservancy Petite Sirah
If you're not familiar with Petite Sirah, generally it's a dark, acidic, full, and tannic grape that's fruit forward. It’s related to true Syrah from the Rhône Valley of Southern France, and is the love child of this grape and another more obscure variety (Peloursin). Although originally from France, it's frowned on there (where it's called Durif) and it really has found a home in Cali, where it smells and tastes like fresh herbs, black pepper, plum, and blueberry. Compared to Syrah, it is less complex, and fruitier.

Where It's From: Livermore Valley
The Grapes: 97% Petite Sirah, 3% Petit Verdot
Vintage: 2007
Price: $15.00

Color: This is a dark daddy of a wine. It was almost opaque in color -- a deep, dark ruby -- inky. There were heavy, stained tears running down the glass showing that this was a wine of high alcohol (13.5% is pretty high). I expected big things -- when a wine has that much pigment, flavor usually follows. Optimism for good tastes by the looks of it.

Smell: A pretty complex smell wafted out of this glass -- black pepper, wet earth, mocha, and vanilla came first. Then there were some sweet smells of black plum, blackberry, cinnamon, and tobacco leaves. It was a nice nose, but a little bit of a cilia singer -- the alcohol went right up my snout and nearly made me sneeze (or maybe that was the black pepper? I kid, it's the alcohol).

Taste: Urgh. I had such high hopes. Why didn't this deliver? Orange sherbet came to mind first, them plum, dark flowers/rose petal, black tea, and a little bit of clove. The wine was creamy and had moderate tannins. It all sounds great, but there was just something missing: POWER. I expect Petite Sirah to have a certain brawn, and this one was watered down. There wasn't the brash, unapologetic flavors I want out of this wine. Even if I suspended what I knew about Petite Sirah, I would still find this wine slightly flat. I've had Concannon's Petite Sirah (not the Conservancy line, obviously, since this is new) and it's got might behind it. This one -- just too light bodied and not enough gusto to make the cut for me.

Food: Normally, I'd say grilled meats with Petite Sirah, but for this, you may want to do roasted chicken, or salmon, or veggie kabobs.

Drink or Down the Sink?: I didn't pour it down the sink, but I didn't savor this one either. It was a real snoozer.

Although I applaud the efforts of the Concannon family for trying to preserve land and use it for traditional farming (and I appreciate them for sending me the wine), I hope that future vintages have a little more finesse to them. This winery knows Petite Sirah, so there's no reason they won't get it right. But I'll have to wait until the next vintage to see...
Readmore »»

Part II: A Wine Tasting With Georgetta Dane of Big House Wines

Hopefully you read my interview with Georgetta Dane, winemaker for Big House Wines. She was a great lady with an interesting background and produced all the wines I'm about to review.

This post is a continuation of the interview, as we tasted through the line of Big House Wines.

Big House is in the town of Soledad in Monterey County on California's Central Coast, just south of San Francisco. It's across from a jail, hence the name "Big House." The Winery's two flagship wines are their Red and White, both blends of Mediterranean varieties, which vary based on the harvest. These wines were launched by Bonny Doon, who sold the brands to The Wine Group, along with Cardinal Zin in 2008.

Apart from the fact that the flagships are blends, which is uncommon in our varietal craving country, another interesting feature of the wines is that they use micro oxygenation, a winemaking process in which oxygen is streamed into the wine as it ferments to soften it. Some feel this is cheating the traditional process (you would normally rack the wine, or move it from one barrel to the other thereby forcing air into the juice), but many others think it's a great way to improve wines by adding a measured amount of air into them to soften them. For mid-tier wines, it's just fine, personally.

Without further ado, let's get to it. Georgetta and I sampled MANY wines. The Big House Red and White, Cardinal Zin, and four varietal wines that have recently been launched by the company. Given that there are seven wines, I'll just give the Cliff Notes on each rather than going into my normal detail:

We started with 2 whites:

The Wine: 2009 Big House White
The Grapes: 56% Malvasia Bianca, 22% Muscat Canelli, 18% Viognier, 4% Rousanne
Cliff Notes: The grapes used for this wine are extremely fragrant, fruity, and floral varieties so the wine smells of melon, gardenia, pear, and peach. It's a big bowl of fruit and flowers. The palate is very soft, with lots of melon, pineapple, pear, and kiwi flavors. It also kind of tastes like honeysuckle and has a touch of sweetness.
Price: $9.99
Drink or down the sink: This is a very drinkable white, and great to keep on hand for a hot summer night when you need something light, cool, and refreshing. Georgetta's strength in harmonious blending is apparent here -- these varieties all share common threads but are generally not assembled, but this wine proves they should be! A great deal for $10.

The Wine: 2009 The Birdman Pinot Grigio
The Grapes: 82% Pinot Grigio, 8% Malvasia Bianca, 3% Muscat Canelli, 2% Viognier, 5% "other" whites
Cliff Notes: This is a refreshing, silky wine with a burst of peach, nectarine, pineapple, and apricot fruit on the nose and the initial palate. The finish is smooth, but there's a little prickle of lemony acid and a hint of spice that gives this wine a bit of umph and makes it refreshing.
Price: $14.99
Drink or down the sink: I like this better than the Big House White. It's got more flavor, I like the acid, and I found it very refreshing. As we enter the hotter weather, this is a candidate for porch wine, and you'll find me with a glass for sure.

We then had 5 reds....

The Wine: 2008 Big House Red
The Grapes: (there are 13, so I'll just list the top 4) 26% Syrah, 13% Petit Sirah, 9% Grenache, 9% Montepulciano
Cliff Notes: This wine smells Italian to me, even though it only contains smaller amounts of Italian varieties. It's a very light, simple red that would be good with a slight chill from time in the fridge. It had a blackberry character, with some sour cherry and very light tannins and acid. Although I liked this wine, I have to say that I was expecting a little more. I tried Big House Reds pre-acquisition and it had a little more flavor and body. Hopefully this wine suffered due to a poor vintage ('08 was hot) and the 2009 will be better.
Price: $9.99
Drink or down the sink: I would drink this wine, but, as I stated, with some time in the fridge. It's a nice porch wine for people looking for something slightly heavier than a Rosé. It went well with my salad, so I think it would be a versatile pairing wine as well.

The Wine: The Lineup
The Grapes: 44% Grenache, 41% Syrah, 15% Mourvèdre
Cliff Notes: Dark fruit like blackberry, plum, and black cherry hop out of the glass and into your nose, not to mention a good dose of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and pepper. This wine is delicious -- it's like a berry cobbler and a cup of coffee. Georgetta sites that this wine is three different angles coming together -- "it's a wife, a husband, and their funny friend (that would be Mourvèdre)" that blend seamlessly.
Price: $14.99
Drink or down the sink: This was hands down my favorite of the entire line. A wine with great fruit, complex flavors that isn't too heavy. This is a wonderful wine and a great example of what the Central Coast of California can offer for a great price.

The Wine: The Slammer
The Grape: 100% Syrah
Cliff Notes: Muted dark fruit, raisins, and bitter tannins with lots of saddle leather. The wine was slightly out of balance with a bit too much tannin and not enough fruit to weigh it out. It lacked a bit of the complexity that I enjoy in a Syrah.
Price: $14.99
Drink or down the sink: Sorry Georgetta, this would probably be a down the sink for me. My love of the Lineup outweighs my distaste for this wine, which I found lacking in plush fruit, spice, and general power that I like in my Syrah.


The Wine: 2006 The Prodigal Son (nice play on words since Petit Sirah was kind of cast aside in France as being too rustic, but has returned and been welcomed home in Cali. See the Wikipedia article to learn about the Prodigal Son and get the reference)
The Grape: 100% Petit Sirah
Cliff Notes: Georgetta described this wine as "dark, rich, and attractive" and she's right. Petit Sirah is a brawny wine, and this one proves that, but it also has a certain delicacy to it that I really liked. A simpler Petit Sirah than many I've had, this wine had nice chocolate notes and black, ripe fruit that burst forth from the glass into your nose and delivered on the palate. I liked the vanilla and caramel hints too -- this is from the American Oak the wine sits in for 12 months.
Price: $14.99
Drink or down the sink: For hamburgers on the grill or barbeque/grilling out, this is a great casual wine and should be on the list.


The Wine: Cardinal Zin
The Grapes: 80% Zinfandel, 10% Mourvèdre, 8% Carignane, 2% Petit Sirah
Cliff Notes: I had this wine years ago and remember it being a big, rich, spicy, fruity Zinfandel. That's the kind that I love because if you're going to be have something fruit forward go big, or go home. Although I liked this wine, I just didn't think there was enough brambly raspberry, blackberry, and ripe plum fruit. The wine fell a little flat for me. I didn't find it fruity enough, nor did I find it spicy enough.
Price: $19.99
Drink or down the sink: This is a good wine and a great pairing for grilled meats. That said, I think I'd rather drink "The Lineup" listed above than drink Cardinal Zin. Maybe they could use a little more Zin in future vintages? I think the wine would benefit.


All in all I was very happy with the wines that I tasted with Georgetta Dane. Big House makes some great values and make high quality stuff.

The reason for the press tour is the launch of the Big House Octavin, an octagonal box of wine that holds about 4 bottles and stays fresh for about 6 weeks. It reduces emissions by 55% and waste by 92%, so it's environmentally friendly and great for those of us who are frequent sippers and sometimes forget to stop off to pick up a bottle. I encourage you to try a few of these and let me know what you think! And for $25, you can be sure that I'm going to pop an box of The Birdman in our fridge for the hot Georgia summer that's inevitable... Readmore »»

Alternative Reds Tasting At Parish: The Re-Cap

Last Wednesday, March 31, I did a tasting at Parish Foods & Goods on Alternative Red Wines. It was a good event (prevented from greatness because some people didn’t make it due to ATL traffic, oh joy!) and we tasted five great wines, all which elicited strong reactions from the crowd.
Here’s the rundown and my take on the wines…(which I didn’t offer at the tasting since I TRY to be objective when teaching!)…

Wine I: Sierra Cantabria Rioja Crianza, Spain, 2005
Hopefully you’re already drinking copious amounts of Rioja. It’s a great wine when made well, although I’d advise against the $10 ones – they kind of suck because the wine needs oak aging to be any good and that costs $$, so the producers pass on those costs to us. Well worth the extra dough though -- it’s warm fruity, spicy goodness when its good.

Rioja is made mainly from the native-to-Spain Tempranillo grape, with Garnacha (Grenache in France), and two other native grapes Graciano and Mazuelo. Tempranillo gets its name from “temprano,” which means early in Spanish. Why? The grape ripens early (not really rocket science). It’s full bodied, low in acid, and tastes like plums and blackberries.

The wine is named after the Rioja region, in north-central Spain, where it’s usually grown at high altitude in both warmer and cooler vineyard sites to get a range of ripeness/flavors in the grapes. With an assortment of flavors to choose from, the winemakers make wine that has depth and complexity in the fruit. Rioja drinkers will concur that the fruit plays a supporting role to the real star of the wine, the spicy, sweet-vanilla character from the oak. The wines can be a little rustic and robust, and they make great pairings with strong flavored dishes.

Sierra Cantabria is made in a modern style, and is fruitier than traditional Rioja. 2005 was a solid vintage for Rioja, but this wine was really tight. It’s a Crianza, which means it is required by Spanish law (yup, the government controls winemaking) to spend at least one year in an oak barrel, and can be released to the market after two years of maturing. This one had four years in the bottle, so it should have been mellow. Maybe I should have decanted this, but I didn’t and I found this wine to be really astringent – the tannins overpowered the fruit, but jealously held on to the warm vanilla-oakiness I’d expect from a Rioja. I think you could do better than this one, which is around $16.

Food Pairings: I like pairing things with foods from the place their made. I think Rioja is awesome with tapas (tortilla Español is awesome), jamón, and other rich food.

Wine II: Damilano Nebbiolo d’Alba, Alba, Italy, 2006
Nebbiolo is a grape native to the Piedmont in Northwest Italy. There are competing theories on where it gets its name, but the most viable one is that it’s from “la nebbia” or the fog that settles on the area during harvest. This grape makes BIG A** wines that can’t be consumed for years because they are way too tannic, acidic, bitter, and nasty until they’ve had some time in bottle penitentiary to calm themselves and transform into truly rich and beautiful wine. It’s the grape of Barolo and Barbaresco and can produce wines with powerful aromas, big tannins, and complex flavors of spice, smoke, tar, and tobacco.

Not all Nebbiolo is destined to a life of an expensive, giant wine. Given the economics of the wine biz, the producers needed to figure out how to tame the beast and sell something in the short term to pay for cellaring all the expensive stuff. Enter Nebbiolo d’Alba, made with modern techniques (colder, shorter fermentations, taking the stems off before crush) to create less complex wines that still have the calling card of a true Nebbiolo -- a bold, firm structure that tastes a little like roses and tar. The best part of these wines: Nebbiolo d’Alba is right next to Barolo and the soil and vineyards are similar – this is an enormous value if you can find a great producer.

Like from Damilano, which has aromas and flavors reminiscent of roses, violets, and plums this wine was a delicious Nebbiolo. Floral, lightly fruity, with great but not-too-harsh tannins, this wine was simply gorgeous. Delicate and powerful at the same time, with a little of the petrichor scent that I just love so much! 2006 was a rough vintage for Nebbiolo, but Damilano still managed to churn out an awesome wine. For $18, this is a steal. Love it. My fave of the night, for certain.

Food Pairings: To continue the theme, I'd pair these with Northern Italian fare. I think roasted and grilled vegetables and meats, tomato-based dishes, or hard cheeses would be ideal!

Wine III: Finca La Linda Malbec, Mendoza, Argentina, 2008
I’ve waxed poetic on Malbec before so I’ll give just a short overview here and say that the grape although originally from Bordeaux and Southwest France, the best is now rich, silky, fruity Malbec from Argentina.

Malbec grapes, grown in the northwestern Mendoza region near the Andes Mountains, are from vines with small berries that make dark colored wines with velvety, intense plumy fruit and they are an awesome value.

The Finca La Linda Malbec was not anywhere close to the quality of the Kaiken I reviewed, but it was half the price ($12) and a great wine. The wine was full of bold cherry, plum, spice, and vanilla-oak aromas and flavors. I liked it and thought it was a great weeknight wine.

Food pairings: With grilled meats and vegetables and hard cheeses this would be an great pairing.


Wine IV Rosenblum North Coast Zinfandel, California, 2007
Like the Malbec, I’ve talked about Zin before too so this is the short recap. Zinfandel is California’s workhorse grape, and grows in 10% of all the state’s vineyards. It’s originally from Croatia and related to Primativo from Italy, but its best expression is really in California. Not to be confused with the powder-puff, sweet, pink, White Zinfandel, red Zin grapes produce rich, robust wines that taste like a raspberry briar patch and are jammy, minty, spicy and complex.

I can’t believe I’ve never reviewed Rosenblum’s North Coast Zinfandel, since it is such a great Zin. It’s a blend of grapes from Mendocino and Sonoma Counties. Mendocino is an up-and-coming but little known area by most. It's mainly hotter than Hades but there are a few spots with very cool climates that are great for high quality vines and these are the valleys from which Rosenblum sources.

The areas in Sonoma where the vines are cultivated are steep, cool, and are known for old vines. This wine was a great Zin – it smelled like brambly blackberry and cherry with vanilla and baking spices and tasted like juicy berries and warm spices. For $14, this is killer.

Food pairings: I’d put it with something like ribs, blackened fish, lamb chops, and eggplant dishes


Wine V: Mettler Petite Sirah, Lodi, California, 2005
This is a grape I’ve written little about, but I’ve got a few in the queue to review (excuse the rhyme) so I’ll do a summary here and get poetic elsewhere. To give a super short summary, Petit Sirah is a dark, acidic, full, and tannic grape that is very fruit forward. It’s related to true Syrah from the Rhône Valley of Southern France, and is a hybrid of this grape and another more obscure variety (Peloursin for you wine dorks).

It really has found a home in Cali, where it smells and tastes like fresh herbs, black pepper, plum, and blueberry. Compared to Syrah, it is less complex, and fruitier.

The Mettler Petite Sirah is from Lodi, an area outside of Sacramento. This is a BIG A** wine -- inky with aromas of dark berries, coffee, and chocolate. By far this was the heaviest wine and was great, but almost like drinking liqueur -- the blueberry, blackberry and spice flavors and the jammy, floral notes were strong and the alcohol was high. It’s a great wine for people who like huge wines and at $20, it packs a lot for the money.

Food Pairings: Heavy stuff -- beef, duck, and barbeque – everything else it will overwhelm.


I wish you were at the tasting to experience the wines! Come see me on April 28th for my next tasting if you're in town!
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